Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Ben Crump Talks 'Worse Than A Lie,' Black Community Missions, ICE Incidents, Boosie Badazz, Trump Administration, Jessie Jackson

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Ben Crump Talks 'Worse Than A Lie,' Black Community Missions, ICE Incidents, Boosie Badazz, Trump Administration, Jessie Jackson · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: Every day a week ago picks up the Breakfast Club.
0:05
Speaker 2: You don't finish for y'all done morning.
0:07
Speaker 3: Everybody is DJ en Vy just hilarious. Charlamagne the guy.
0:11
Speaker 3: We are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest
0:13
Speaker 3: in the building, indeed, Attorney Benjamin Crumb.
0:15
Speaker 1: Welcome, brother, How you feeling the morning and birthday King Queen?
0:18
Speaker 4: How are you kiddy Man? Happy to catch you out
0:23
Speaker 4: doing black history much?
0:24
Speaker 5: Yes, sir, Yes, sir, I feel like you've been keeping
0:26
Speaker 5: more with a low profile lately, Brother Crump.
0:28
Speaker 4: You know, I've worked on this novel and I was
0:32
Speaker 4: really trying to inspire the next generation of civil rights
0:37
Speaker 4: lawyers social justice warriors, because it has always be building
0:41
Speaker 4: for the future. We're gonna pass this torch, and we
0:44
Speaker 4: got to make sure the next generation go even further
0:47
Speaker 4: than us. And so Bett Man, I've been working by
0:51
Speaker 4: But if I just ain't been in the public so.
0:53
Speaker 2: Much, is there a reason for that?
0:54
Speaker 1: No, it's just that.
0:58
Speaker 4: We put we got the me for how to suit
1:01
Speaker 4: the clan that was in the media. We've been fighting
1:05
Speaker 4: on these environmental racism cases. I'm battling in Altera Dina
1:10
Speaker 4: the wildfires while everybody moved on. Those black people are
1:13
Speaker 4: still this place, still homeless, and we're still fighting the
1:17
Speaker 4: whole the company accountable and the county because they gave
1:20
Speaker 4: it the evacuation notices to the people on the east side,
1:25
Speaker 4: the more affluent white people, and then the black people
1:29
Speaker 4: got their evacuation notices late, and nineteen black people died
1:35
Speaker 4: and nobody's talking about it. And if we're not careful,
1:38
Speaker 4: Charlemagne man alter Dina, which was the predominantly black historic
1:44
Speaker 4: distraction of Los Angeles, will become California's Katrina. And that's
1:50
Speaker 4: what we cannot afford, for black people to lose their land,
1:54
Speaker 4: their generational wealth. And we sometimes with this administration, we
2:01
Speaker 4: forget the trouble, I mean just the craziness they're doing.
2:05
Speaker 4: They didn't even allow FEMA to come in and build
2:08
Speaker 4: the infrastructure because this president was opposed to California and
2:14
Speaker 4: it's democratic leadership, so they said, we're not going to
2:18
Speaker 4: help them. So now we're having to hold the state
2:21
Speaker 4: and the county and the City of Los Angeles accountable
2:25
Speaker 4: to do infrastructure. So the black people, if it would
2:28
Speaker 4: have took a year a year and a half to
2:30
Speaker 4: get back in your home, now it's going to take
2:32
Speaker 4: two years, two years and a half. Can you imagine,
2:36
Speaker 4: you know, can you imagine Charlotte Maine, y'all, just one day,
2:41
Speaker 4: you minding your business and then a fire comes from
2:45
Speaker 4: the transform and just in a matter of minutes burning
2:49
Speaker 4: everything everything you.
2:51
Speaker 1: Had is gone.
2:53
Speaker 4: Your children are not being able to go to school,
2:56
Speaker 4: your cars were burnt, so you can't go to work.
2:59
Speaker 4: And then the theme of the emergency management system that
3:03
Speaker 4: was built for this exact moment then says, for political reasons,
3:07
Speaker 4: we're not going to do anything.
3:09
Speaker 2: Please please, I'm glad to know that you on that case.
3:11
Speaker 4: Man.
3:12
Speaker 2: Memi Browna does off Front page News.
3:13
Speaker 5: She did a whole special on Alter Dina call from
3:16
Speaker 5: Altadina with Love and she and she talks about that
3:18
Speaker 5: a lot, and the people she talked to talk about
3:20
Speaker 5: that a lot. And people call up here all the
3:22
Speaker 5: time just looking for help. It's in assistance and feel
3:24
Speaker 5: like they can't get it. And people aren't remember what happened.
3:27
Speaker 1: What about this show.
3:28
Speaker 4: We're suing the hell out on Charlamagne so they ever
3:31
Speaker 4: know that we if they ain't got nobody at least advocating,
3:35
Speaker 4: call us and we'll keep fighting the insurance companies. You know,
3:39
Speaker 4: Governor knew, some of the Attorney General and them. They
3:41
Speaker 4: did a mortgage moratorium for a year, and then we
3:45
Speaker 4: got to extended another year because think about it, envy
3:48
Speaker 4: and just yeah, you're paying a mortgage on a house
3:52
Speaker 4: that you can't even live in. I mean, and a
3:57
Speaker 4: lot of people just ain't doing it. And so you
4:00
Speaker 4: got the whether the disaster capitalists the opportunitist because you know,
4:06
Speaker 4: the Olympics coming into la they got World Cup coming. Man,
4:10
Speaker 4: they've been trying to bop these black people land forever anyway,
4:14
Speaker 4: and now with this tragedy, they're taking the opportunity to
4:18
Speaker 4: throw pennies on the dollar. And still our land, still
4:21
Speaker 4: our generational wealth. And so the inshurance companies, you know,
4:26
Speaker 4: have been doing what they do. I believe all of them,
4:29
Speaker 4: State farm, all state, everybody. They try to get your premiums,
4:34
Speaker 4: no matter how many times you pay.
4:36
Speaker 1: The first time you make a claim, they come.
4:39
Speaker 4: Over every single reason to say, well, we're not gonna
4:43
Speaker 4: deny that, we're gonna deny this claim, or we don't
4:46
Speaker 4: think this land is that valuable. Lauren and Charlamaine because
4:50
Speaker 4: it's in a black neighborhood.
4:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, but once they get all black people out, then
4:53
Speaker 5: they didn't bring the white people in not land increase tripletye.
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Speaker 1: Ten times with the Olympics.
4:58
Speaker 4: Man, they gonna be building high rises and this is
5:02
Speaker 4: prime land Los Angeles already is what they said, five
5:08
Speaker 4: times more than any of the property in America price wise,
5:12
Speaker 4: and so this is going to go up even more.
5:14
Speaker 4: It's so many things that don't make the media Charlemagne
5:18
Speaker 4: that we work on and fight on, you know, banking
5:23
Speaker 4: while black, and right now, all the black women who
5:25
Speaker 4: are being fired and terminated, the coust this attack on
5:30
Speaker 4: DEI and diversity equit inclusion. We're suing all these corporations
5:34
Speaker 4: for these black people who are losing their jobs with
5:38
Speaker 4: no rhyme or reason, just that you know, this administration
5:42
Speaker 4: gave us an excuse now that we don't have to
5:45
Speaker 4: tolerate you all.
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Speaker 1: I mean.
5:47
Speaker 4: And it's funny as funny as our test figuring. I
5:51
Speaker 4: always laughed when we were representing lower people at the
5:57
Speaker 4: corporation and they bought discrimination claims. You would these black
6:01
Speaker 4: people sitting at the table helping to defend the corporation's
6:05
Speaker 4: actions justifications to fire them.
6:08
Speaker 1: But now you got a lot of those people calling
6:12
Speaker 1: me in. I'm like, wow, ain't this interesting?
6:14
Speaker 4: The tables have turned now it's you on this side
6:18
Speaker 4: while you are helping protect them. So it just says
6:21
Speaker 4: to us, especially during Black History Mark, the future of
6:24
Speaker 4: black people won't be determined by how white people treat us.
6:30
Speaker 4: The future of black people won't be determined how white
6:34
Speaker 4: people support us. The future of black people won't be
6:38
Speaker 4: determined how white people invest in us. But the future
6:41
Speaker 4: of black people will be determined how we treat each other.
6:47
Speaker 4: The future of black people will be how we support
6:49
Speaker 4: each other. The future of black people, Charlamagne, will be
6:52
Speaker 4: how we invest in each other.
6:54
Speaker 1: And that's the God's honest.
6:56
Speaker 4: Truth when you really think about it, man, we need
6:59
Speaker 4: to be supporting black businesses, black lawyers, black doctors, black restaurants,
7:04
Speaker 4: black dry cleaners, black mechanics, black insurance agent. I mean,
7:08
Speaker 4: we got that every week have dinner or at least
7:11
Speaker 4: every month, have dinner, lunch with our colleagues and so forth.
7:15
Speaker 1: And we got to hold each other accountable.
7:16
Speaker 4: But like jes you know, the fifty percent of your money,
7:21
Speaker 4: at least forty percent go to black businesses.
7:23
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, who let's talk about it. And I try
7:26
Speaker 1: to be honest with myself.
7:27
Speaker 4: God bless me immensely, and I'm like, I don't want
7:31
Speaker 4: to be a hypocrite. I want to be true. And
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Speaker 4: I got to look in the mirror first and foremost
7:37
Speaker 4: and hold myself accountable. And so I say to myself,
7:40
Speaker 4: when I really think about it, Our Aging sisters and
7:43
Speaker 4: brother brothers, their dollar in their community stays in their
7:48
Speaker 4: community twenty one days before it leaves Our Jewish sisters
7:52
Speaker 4: and brothers, their dollar stays in their community, seventeen days
7:57
Speaker 4: before it leaves their community. Black Americans, our dollars stay
8:03
Speaker 4: in our community seventeen minutes before it leaves our community.
8:08
Speaker 1: And it's sad shall the man because I love how.
8:15
Speaker 4: Leeby Armstrong out of Minneapolis and Jamal Bryant when we
8:20
Speaker 4: boycotted Target and those things. Because it's such a philosophical decision,
8:27
Speaker 4: it's a mindset. They say, I'm going to be intentional
8:30
Speaker 4: about supporting black businesses, and you gotta be intentional. And
8:34
Speaker 4: with the Internet we can find black businesses. They say, no, no,
8:38
Speaker 4: I'm going to find a black Dennis. I'm going to
8:41
Speaker 4: find a black you know, insurance agent. Now and it's
8:45
Speaker 4: intentional because now we're building a strong black economic base
8:50
Speaker 4: and we can then tell this administration that, hey, like
8:55
Speaker 4: how new Jack City cash many brothers are self contained unit.
8:59
Speaker 1: We will be okay with or without you. We don't
9:02
Speaker 1: need you to say.
9:02
Speaker 5: But it's crazy though, because these conversations have been going
9:05
Speaker 5: on since the beginning of the time, Like, you're not
9:06
Speaker 5: saying nothing that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad didn't say that,
9:09
Speaker 5: Martin Garvey didn't say that, Martin Luther King Junior didn't
9:11
Speaker 5: say like. It's just like, at what point are people
9:14
Speaker 5: going to realize unity and group operation is the way.
9:16
Speaker 4: You know, Charlomagne, we have to keep saying it though,
9:19
Speaker 4: you know, as my grandmother and them, you say, I
9:22
Speaker 4: know we're singing to the choir, but the choir gotta
9:24
Speaker 4: sing louder.
9:25
Speaker 1: And it just got to be something that.
9:26
Speaker 4: We remind each other, like you, Lauren, just Envy, y'all
9:31
Speaker 4: every month say hey, how many black businesses do y'all support?
9:35
Speaker 4: Because it's easy to just spend money. I know my
9:39
Speaker 4: family they spend it quick. But what when you stop
9:42
Speaker 4: and take account and you really try to be honest
9:46
Speaker 4: with yourself and you start writing down, Well, did I
9:49
Speaker 4: at least give twenty five percent of my money? I
9:53
Speaker 4: know I paid all these white people. I bought this stuff.
9:56
Speaker 4: I went to corporate America, you know, to.
9:59
Speaker 2: A Mexican.
10:01
Speaker 4: And with this book, we've done so much to try
10:05
Speaker 4: to push people to independent black bookstores, even though I
10:08
Speaker 4: know Amazon, you know, it's so easy, so convenient, and
10:11
Speaker 4: so forth. But I was so proud of sh'all the
10:14
Speaker 4: main when they wrote that article saying that being Crump's
10:19
Speaker 4: worse than a lie drove a surge in book sells
10:24
Speaker 4: at black bookstores. I mean, that's what it's about, if
10:28
Speaker 4: we're being honest with ourself. It's one thing for you
10:30
Speaker 4: to come up, but how do you help bring everybody
10:32
Speaker 4: else up with you? That's what I love about you, man,
10:35
Speaker 4: with the black effect. You're bringing a lot of people up.
10:38
Speaker 2: I appreciate you.
10:39
Speaker 5: Why did you choose fiction as the vehicle for the
10:41
Speaker 5: story instead of like nonfiction?
10:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know it's interesting because my personal hero, third
10:47
Speaker 4: Good Marshall. He once said that most people will never
10:53
Speaker 4: know what really happens in a courtroom when you're fighting
10:58
Speaker 4: for liberty and justice for marginalized people. And he said
11:04
Speaker 4: That's why Charlamagne he would write his legal memorandums and
11:09
Speaker 4: his pleadings and his briefs to be very engaging, because
11:14
Speaker 4: he wanted to entice people to read those pleadings so
11:17
Speaker 4: they could be educated on what really happens during due
11:21
Speaker 4: process and court proceedings and so forth.
11:24
Speaker 1: And so I said to myself, well, what could be
11:27
Speaker 1: more engaging than a legal thriller?
11:29
Speaker 4: I mean John Grisham with The Rainmaker, Michael Conley with
11:34
Speaker 4: the Lincoln Lawyer. They say, millions of books every year
11:38
Speaker 4: because legal thrillers are intriguing, you know, you excited trying
11:42
Speaker 4: to figure my page turners and so forth. And I said,
11:45
Speaker 4: you know, man, I grew up with my grandmother watching Perry.
11:50
Speaker 1: Mason, you know, the old TV show.
11:53
Speaker 4: You know he figured it out his brilliance, his resources.
11:56
Speaker 4: And then when college, you know, you got the Grisham
11:59
Speaker 4: and there. But I kept saying, man, when are they
12:03
Speaker 4: gonna make a superhero black trial lawyer and everything? And
12:08
Speaker 4: I kept trying to figure out that they're ever gonna
12:10
Speaker 4: do it. And so when I said lawd God said, Negro,
12:13
Speaker 4: that ain't their lane. You know what they know about
12:16
Speaker 4: being a black lawyer understanding the coach and fighting the
12:19
Speaker 4: civil rights struggle.
12:21
Speaker 1: Said that's your lane.
12:22
Speaker 4: And so that's what inspired me to write Worse Than
12:25
Speaker 4: a Lot and create this superhero trial lawyer named Bolie Cooper.
12:31
Speaker 4: This person with his team of social justice warriors, they
12:36
Speaker 4: go in and they exalt the brilliance of our community.
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Speaker 4: We have returning citizens, we have a Puerto Rican sister
12:45
Speaker 4: who's a lawyer, all working on the team, saying that
12:48
Speaker 4: you know, we are just as brilliant as anything they
12:52
Speaker 4: can create. And I want the next generation of people
12:55
Speaker 4: who look like us to have heroes that they can
12:58
Speaker 4: count on and say, na, nah, you get your Lincoln Lawyer,
13:02
Speaker 4: we'll take Body Cooper.
13:04
Speaker 6: So in Bullie's journey through the book, right, there's a
13:06
Speaker 6: lot of messaging that people will pick up on as
13:09
Speaker 6: a followed the story. How did you choose which messages
13:12
Speaker 6: you wanted people to pick up on? Because I'm sure
13:14
Speaker 6: you experienced so much stuff that we need to know
13:16
Speaker 6: and that we should be learning.
13:18
Speaker 4: You know, absolutely, Lawyer, and what you do as a writer,
13:21
Speaker 4: especially a fiction writer, you're intentional with what you're trying
13:24
Speaker 4: to convey, but you don't want to come across to preaching.
13:27
Speaker 4: And so forth, and so even you know, I've been
13:31
Speaker 4: getting very good reviews, and I'm thankful for it, but
13:35
Speaker 4: it doesn't matter because I knew the audience I was
13:38
Speaker 4: writing for. I was trying to do dis generations, to
13:42
Speaker 4: kill a mocking bird that inspires so many young people
13:45
Speaker 4: to say, I want to go be a lawyer and
13:47
Speaker 4: try to make the law be an instrument for good.
13:50
Speaker 4: And so I was intentional the lawyer. Even from the
13:54
Speaker 4: beginning of the book, people keep saying it's a civil
13:58
Speaker 4: rights legal thriller and it's wrapped in black culture, but
14:02
Speaker 4: it's also a historical reference point because what I did
14:07
Speaker 4: are Hollis Montrose, this black police officer who shot by
14:11
Speaker 4: four white police officers on the night of two thousand
14:16
Speaker 4: and eight, the historic election of President Barack Obama becoming
14:21
Speaker 4: the first black president. Because I was trying to create
14:25
Speaker 4: an allegory where we took symbolic characters and events and
14:31
Speaker 4: settings to try to create abstract ideas, like the idea,
14:39
Speaker 4: if you have the election of the first black president,
14:42
Speaker 4: as many people believe Charlemagne in two thousand and eight,
14:46
Speaker 4: we were now going to have a post racial America.
14:49
Speaker 4: And even in the book, the chapter before Hollis is
14:53
Speaker 4: shot ten times. On that night, Boli Cooper is talking
14:58
Speaker 4: to his wife. He was on an airport when the
15:00
Speaker 4: election results came, and he told his wife when he landed,
15:04
Speaker 4: he said, you know, there was a white gentleman on
15:06
Speaker 4: the plane who said to me, well, buddy, looked like
15:10
Speaker 4: you're gonna have to find a new career now that
15:12
Speaker 4: we've elected a black president. There won't be a need
15:16
Speaker 4: for civil rights anymore. And I was intentional about those
15:20
Speaker 4: things because really it was for shouting, because in fiction
15:23
Speaker 4: you can do that because envy the way we were
15:27
Speaker 4: all proud and happy and had this feeling of hope
15:31
Speaker 4: and optimism when for Barack Obama was elected the first
15:34
Speaker 4: black president.
15:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like society. I did.
15:38
Speaker 4: And then but what we did not fathom was that
15:43
Speaker 4: there was a whole lot of people who had a
15:47
Speaker 4: different reaction to us, and they were also going to
15:52
Speaker 4: be able to express their ways and their actions and
15:56
Speaker 4: even when they shoot. Two things that's been pointed out
16:00
Speaker 4: by a lot of the literary people read the book.
16:03
Speaker 4: When Hollis Montrose, this black po police officer, you can't
16:07
Speaker 4: find nobody better. Because we wanted to intentionally do that
16:10
Speaker 4: because when they killed George Floyd, when they killed Mike Brown,
16:13
Speaker 4: when they kill Stefan Clarke, all these brothers, if they're
16:17
Speaker 4: not an angel, if they've ever been arrested, if they've
16:19
Speaker 4: ever been a convicted felon, if they are undocumented, they
16:23
Speaker 4: come up and they say, oh, well, you know they
16:26
Speaker 4: really were criminals.
16:27
Speaker 1: They not worthy of your consideration.
16:29
Speaker 4: I wanted to say, no, no, we got a person
16:31
Speaker 4: who was a model citizen. And it didn't matter Charlamagne,
16:35
Speaker 4: because when those police officers saw Hollis Montrose, they didn't
16:39
Speaker 4: see him. They saw what they projected on him. And
16:42
Speaker 4: so when they are down there, Hollis is saying, I'm
16:46
Speaker 4: an officer, I got my idea and everything they tell him,
16:50
Speaker 4: shut up, just comply. We don't care if that boy's
16:54
Speaker 4: in the White House. We're still in control because I
16:57
Speaker 4: am trying to create the setting for the book.
17:00
Speaker 1: And the second thing.
17:01
Speaker 4: That they point out when they shot him ten times
17:05
Speaker 4: and that hot metal was going into his body, I wrote,
17:10
Speaker 4: he cried an ancestral cry out to God, and I
17:16
Speaker 4: tried to paint that picture for all the black people
17:19
Speaker 4: who had been brutalized and killed unjustly by police, the
17:23
Speaker 4: cries that they must have had, thinking that this was
17:27
Speaker 4: it for them.
17:28
Speaker 1: And I wrote this and during the pandemic with.
17:33
Speaker 4: Breonna, George Floyd, Ahmad Arbery, Andre Hill, and I was
17:41
Speaker 4: very emotional at that time because this was therapeutic in
17:45
Speaker 4: many ways. But I thought about looking at Brianna's picture
17:50
Speaker 4: with eight bullet holes in her body and her nightgown
17:55
Speaker 4: lying in the hallway of her apartment when I was
17:59
Speaker 4: writing a Hollis And so it is hopefully one of
18:04
Speaker 4: those things that is enticing and engaging, entertaining. But I'm
18:10
Speaker 4: really trying to teach people about how hard it is
18:14
Speaker 4: to fight for civil rights in America.
18:16
Speaker 5: When you talk about that title worse than a lie, right, like, like,
18:19
Speaker 5: what in your view is actually.
18:20
Speaker 2: Worse than lying?
18:23
Speaker 5: And do you think America understands how often that shows
18:25
Speaker 5: up in the courtroom.
18:27
Speaker 4: I certainly think they don't. My grandmother who helped raise me.
18:32
Speaker 4: My mom worked two jobs to raise me and my
18:34
Speaker 4: two little brothers, so oftentimes we stay with my grandmother,
18:38
Speaker 4: And you know, black grandmothers are brilliant. My grandmother, I
18:41
Speaker 4: think was the wisest person I ever met in the world.
18:44
Speaker 4: And I remember her saying, Charli Man on occasion, what's
18:48
Speaker 4: worse than a lie? To tell the truth and have
18:52
Speaker 4: nobody believe you? I mean, that's and then in this
18:56
Speaker 4: book it really goes so much deeper, where when you
19:01
Speaker 4: are seeing where hollis, who's been shot ten times, survived
19:05
Speaker 4: and now he's charged with four counts of attempted murder,
19:10
Speaker 4: is really life imitating art when you think about what's
19:14
Speaker 4: going on in Minneapolis with ice and stuff.
19:17
Speaker 1: But to answer your question directly.
19:19
Speaker 4: Charlemagne Man, I don't think many people understand how many
19:27
Speaker 4: sisters and brothers have to go in courtrooms all across
19:32
Speaker 4: America every day and lie on themselves and except trumped
19:38
Speaker 4: up felony convictions and trumped up felony plea agreements, because
19:45
Speaker 4: they understand that the alternative of going to trial well
19:51
Speaker 4: for jury of peers that have nothing in common with them,
19:56
Speaker 4: the likelihood that they would be convicted and sentenced for
20:01
Speaker 4: decades and have to be wrongfully convicted for a crime
20:05
Speaker 4: they didn't even commit. That's worse than a lie. And
20:08
Speaker 4: it happens every day, man, every day.
20:11
Speaker 3: How do you deal with stepping from the beside from
20:14
Speaker 3: the book for a second, but how do you deal
20:16
Speaker 3: with that, right, because I feel like even on social
20:19
Speaker 3: media now, people are lying more and more and more.
20:23
Speaker 3: But the problem with the line is I feel like journalists, newscasters, papers,
20:29
Speaker 3: they're taking what these people are saying and making it factual,
20:32
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So now when people hear it,
20:34
Speaker 3: they think they're hearing it from Channel four, but it's.
20:36
Speaker 2: Really a lot that they heard online.
20:38
Speaker 3: How do you deal with that when you go into
20:39
Speaker 3: those courtrooms?
20:40
Speaker 1: Oh, it's getting so much worse already.
20:42
Speaker 4: You have two battles when you're representing people of color,
20:48
Speaker 4: especially in America, because there's a credibility factor. Every time
20:52
Speaker 4: we're fighting the police off, we're fighting these large banks
20:56
Speaker 4: of a banking while black discrimination cases are we're fighting
20:59
Speaker 4: these corporations like Elon Mussen thew' about poisoning our community
21:04
Speaker 4: with these data centers. There's this credibility gap where they
21:08
Speaker 4: want to believe what white people say over black people.
21:13
Speaker 4: And the worst part about it, envy, is our people
21:16
Speaker 4: want to believe it too. Our people are so quick
21:18
Speaker 4: to attack one another. I mean, every day I pray
21:22
Speaker 4: to God and say God, help me love our people
21:24
Speaker 4: more than they hate themselves. You know, I really believe,
21:28
Speaker 4: because when you've been blessed, you gotta try to do
21:32
Speaker 4: better to help other people. And you got to even
21:35
Speaker 4: make allowances for their criticisms too, because slavery, I mean,
21:38
Speaker 4: they have such a psychological effect on our people, and
21:41
Speaker 4: we got so many haters out there on us when
21:45
Speaker 4: we got so much. We're fighting against white people. I
21:48
Speaker 4: don't care what black people do. Try to get them
21:50
Speaker 4: some grace, you know. And so the line is so
21:54
Speaker 4: real now with social media, I mean, it's being proliferated
22:00
Speaker 4: hundred times than what we were used to before social media.
22:03
Speaker 4: But that's why in the novel, you know, early on
22:07
Speaker 4: Boli Cooper realizes why he's fighting the Chicago machine and stuff.
22:12
Speaker 4: To beat the broken system, He's gonna need more than
22:15
Speaker 4: just the truth. What we're gonna need is our whole
22:18
Speaker 4: community being gavnized, with our resources, with our brilliance, with
22:23
Speaker 4: our connections that come together just to get justice. And
22:27
Speaker 4: it's never about one person. That's the other thing I
22:29
Speaker 4: tried to emphasize in the book. It's always a team effort.
22:33
Speaker 4: The fact that we I was intentional about having returning
22:36
Speaker 4: citizens brothers who were convicted of drug dealing and you know,
22:42
Speaker 4: being street wise and so forth. It was like Malcolm
22:46
Speaker 4: X said, some of our most brilliant minds in America
22:51
Speaker 4: are locked up in five by seven cells, never given
22:56
Speaker 4: the opportunity to expose their intelligence and so forth.
22:59
Speaker 1: And this new series I wanted to.
23:02
Speaker 4: Give those brothers opportunity to say, what would it be
23:06
Speaker 4: like if they got to expose themselves using their street
23:09
Speaker 4: smarts and their intellect and brilliance to help solve cases.
23:14
Speaker 4: And so that's how you try to overcome the truth.
23:16
Speaker 4: But it's hard, man. They was those saying a lot
23:20
Speaker 4: of goals around the world.
23:22
Speaker 2: Around the world, what the truth is putting on the
23:23
Speaker 2: shoe exactly.
23:24
Speaker 6: I saw the press conference you did about you, but
23:26
Speaker 6: YouTube and the targeting of like people like falsely on
23:31
Speaker 6: the YouTube and foreign people.
23:33
Speaker 1: Len who's doing it?
23:35
Speaker 4: I mean, you got these foreign actors in country like
23:39
Speaker 4: India and uh Career and so forth coming up with accounsel.
23:44
Speaker 4: That's why we're looking at Google and YouTube and them saying, well,
23:48
Speaker 4: you all are pailing them even though it's being shown
23:51
Speaker 4: to be false. With Judge Faith and Judge Mathis and
23:55
Speaker 4: I mean all these lives, uh, Margie har Stevie wonder.
24:00
Speaker 4: I mean, just putting out lines and our people believe
24:03
Speaker 4: it so quickly. Jes, I don't know why it is
24:06
Speaker 4: we are so prone to be leave negative versus positive.
24:09
Speaker 2: You want to you want to think the worst of people.
24:12
Speaker 5: I feel like, mister Crump, that's why I think you
24:15
Speaker 5: got a little profile.
24:16
Speaker 2: I think you got overwhelmed.
24:17
Speaker 5: By all the negativity because you all wanted the people
24:19
Speaker 5: that's really out here on the front lines helping our people.
24:22
Speaker 5: But for whatever reason, people wanted to villainize you, especially.
24:26
Speaker 2: A lot of our own.
24:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:27
Speaker 4: And you know it's so interesting, Charlemagne, because Man, the
24:34
Speaker 4: more good you try to do, God just keep blessing you.
24:37
Speaker 4: So I don't even think about any negativity criticism. Ts Lawrence,
24:43
Speaker 4: the British soldier known as Launch of Arabia. He said
24:47
Speaker 4: something so profound. He said, the most dangerous person in
24:50
Speaker 4: the world is the person who dreams with their eyes open.
24:53
Speaker 4: They're so focused on their objective that they have very
24:57
Speaker 4: little time to focus on any other distractions. That's how
25:01
Speaker 4: I run my life. We're now twenty one cities. You know,
25:05
Speaker 4: we have sixty over sixty member staff, two hundred lawyers
25:09
Speaker 4: working with us, and I'm just focused on my mission
25:12
Speaker 4: in life that God put on my calling. I can't
25:15
Speaker 4: worry about what you're saying. Man, We too busy trying
25:18
Speaker 4: to help liberate black people.
25:20
Speaker 1: I'm too busy now trying to do stuff.
25:22
Speaker 4: Globally with Africa and so forth, because we if we
25:26
Speaker 4: learned anything from this administration, it's not enough to think nationally.
25:30
Speaker 4: We really got to think globally and the African diaspora,
25:33
Speaker 4: Like Marcus Garbin said, that's what's gonna save our people.
25:36
Speaker 5: Is there a constitutional crisis when the president repeatedly attacks judges, prosecutors,
25:43
Speaker 5: and juries. Are that I guess protected under some type
25:47
Speaker 5: of First Amendment?
25:49
Speaker 4: You know again, schaw Man, That's why I wrote this
25:52
Speaker 4: legal thriller because I want so many people to go
25:56
Speaker 4: out hopefully independent bookstores are Amazon bars and or whatever.
25:59
Speaker 1: You can start reading this book learning.
26:01
Speaker 4: Because we talk a lot about civil procedure and criminal procedure.
26:05
Speaker 4: It's funny because my cousin Vinny, you remember that movie.
26:09
Speaker 4: It was funny and entertaining, but you watch it, you
26:11
Speaker 4: learn a lot. And so like a few good men
26:14
Speaker 4: and Lincoln lawyer rain Maker when they read this book
26:18
Speaker 4: about black superhero lawyers. I want people to be learning
26:21
Speaker 4: a lot because they need to understand about the Constitution.
26:25
Speaker 4: I was talking about this is art imitating life and
26:31
Speaker 4: life imitating art Charlamagne. When I wrote this book, you
26:34
Speaker 4: know it was in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. Hollis
26:37
Speaker 4: Montrose gets shot ten times by four white officers, and
26:42
Speaker 4: there's a sister who records it on video from her apartment. Wonder,
26:46
Speaker 4: but none of that is enough when the system starts
26:50
Speaker 4: to conspire to oppress the truth. And then we think
26:53
Speaker 4: about what happened two months ago with Alex Peretti, four
26:57
Speaker 4: or five officers around him, he gets shot ten times.
27:01
Speaker 4: Like Hollis, he was licensed to care gun had it
27:03
Speaker 4: on him. Hollis licensed care gun had it on him.
27:06
Speaker 4: Both arguments said that even though there's video, we felt
27:10
Speaker 4: them fear of our life and that's why we killed them.
27:12
Speaker 4: And then you saw the powers that become and start
27:15
Speaker 4: saying it was justified. I mean, even with video, it's
27:19
Speaker 4: no guarantee that you're gonna get the truth in justice out.
27:23
Speaker 4: And so when we think about the constitution crisis, I
27:26
Speaker 4: immediately think about the actions of ice and what's going on,
27:30
Speaker 4: how it is a complete assault on the Constitution of
27:34
Speaker 4: the United States.
27:35
Speaker 1: I mean it's an assault on.
27:37
Speaker 4: The First Amendment right to free speech, freedom of assembly,
27:41
Speaker 4: freedom of press. When they're arrested at Georgia Fort and
27:44
Speaker 4: don Lemon. The second Amendment, right, I mean the attack
27:48
Speaker 4: on it. When you think about Alex Parade, they said
27:51
Speaker 4: that he wasn't can bring his farm to this protest.
27:55
Speaker 4: Even you have western young Kyle Rittenhouse, they let him
28:01
Speaker 4: march right up there, made him a hero for having
28:03
Speaker 4: the gun at the rally for Jacob Blake. But then
28:07
Speaker 4: the third, the fourth Amendment, assault against the prohibition of
28:12
Speaker 4: unlawful searches and seizures. My god, I mean they're kicking
28:17
Speaker 4: in people front doors with warrants based on racial profile
28:22
Speaker 4: and nothing else. I mean busting people card windows when
28:25
Speaker 4: they're driving in the street. I mean, no warrant, no
28:28
Speaker 4: probable cause, just that now you look Spanish, or you
28:32
Speaker 4: look Samarian, or you look Haitian. So black people don't
28:36
Speaker 4: take it lightly that they ain't coming for you next,
28:39
Speaker 4: because they're gonna say, oh, you look like our Haitian cousins.
28:42
Speaker 4: You look like our Samalian cousins. The Fifth Amendment right
28:45
Speaker 4: to do process of the law. How they just turned
28:48
Speaker 4: that on its head, Charlamagne. The fact that it was
28:51
Speaker 4: one of the most cherished principles in America to say
28:55
Speaker 4: that you're innocent into proven guilty.
28:58
Speaker 1: Well not with ice, not not.
29:00
Speaker 4: You have guilty, and you got to prove your innocent,
29:03
Speaker 4: You got to prove that you're an American citizen, that
29:05
Speaker 4: you got your papers, and so forth. It reminds you
29:08
Speaker 4: of South Africa doing apartheid.
29:10
Speaker 1: And then you think about the sixth Amendment right to counsel.
29:13
Speaker 4: The fact that you got people and ICE detention centers
29:17
Speaker 4: and their lawyers are trying to go meet with them
29:20
Speaker 4: and have consultations with them, and they're being denied access.
29:24
Speaker 1: And then worst of all, y'all, worst.
29:27
Speaker 4: Of all is the attack on the Eighth Amendment rights
29:33
Speaker 4: against Cruel and Unusual punishment, Charlemagne. The fact that, man,
29:40
Speaker 4: you got people in these detention facilities who are American
29:43
Speaker 4: citizens too, and they need their insulin, they need their
29:47
Speaker 4: heart medicine, and they're not being given that reasonable medical.
29:55
Speaker 1: Attention.
29:56
Speaker 4: That it's clear from medical records and everything, and people
30:00
Speaker 4: are dying and nobody's saying anything about it. And you
30:04
Speaker 4: got these private corporations with these contracts to keep.
30:08
Speaker 1: Building these detention facilities, to keep building these prisons.
30:12
Speaker 4: Y'all, we need to stop attacking each other because they're
30:15
Speaker 4: attacking us, and they.
30:16
Speaker 1: Mean for our people, your children.
30:19
Speaker 4: Your cousins, your spouses to end up in those prisons.
30:22
Speaker 4: Trump certainly don't mean for his kind to end up
30:25
Speaker 4: in those prisons.
30:26
Speaker 5: Does it ever get overwhelming for you being that you
30:28
Speaker 5: are to go to you know, civil rights attorneys, Like
30:30
Speaker 5: when people think, and especially the generation you're like somebody
30:33
Speaker 5: called Ben Crump, did it ever get old woman for you?
30:35
Speaker 6: You know?
30:36
Speaker 4: I try to always thank God and be humble, never
30:42
Speaker 4: get the big hair, you know, black American's Attorney general.
30:45
Speaker 4: I say, well, I'm proud that people would think that
30:51
Speaker 4: of me. But what I also know Charlemagne, it can
30:55
Speaker 4: never be about one person. We can't have one leader
31:00
Speaker 4: because they'll take them out and then where will we be.
31:02
Speaker 1: So I'm all.
31:03
Speaker 4: About community and building the bench we gotta keep. I'm
31:08
Speaker 4: so happy that Tess is in law school. I'm so
31:10
Speaker 4: happy that other people are going to law school because
31:12
Speaker 4: we need like third Good March, she said, we need
31:15
Speaker 4: an army of civil rights lawyers to be able to
31:17
Speaker 4: deal with all the injustices we have. And so I
31:21
Speaker 4: try never ever to say old woe is me, because
31:26
Speaker 4: you know, Charlamagne, if I did not choose to go
31:29
Speaker 4: take on these big fights, then I wouldn't have to
31:33
Speaker 4: worry about people calling me. But I choose because I say,
31:37
Speaker 4: God bless me, and shame on me if I don't
31:40
Speaker 4: use the influence that God gave me to go try
31:44
Speaker 4: to help others.
31:45
Speaker 1: And that's what.
31:49
Speaker 4: It was, Jamie Fox and I and oh at Harry Bellefonte.
31:55
Speaker 4: Harry Belafonte said, what good is having influence if you
31:59
Speaker 4: don't use it when it matters most? And I worry
32:01
Speaker 4: so much about other sisters and brothers who got the
32:04
Speaker 4: influence who just stay silent.
32:06
Speaker 7: Man.
32:07
Speaker 4: I'm like, you got all this money, all this power,
32:09
Speaker 4: you see what's happening to our people, and you ain't
32:12
Speaker 4: gonna say nothing. I mean it, and again I shot
32:16
Speaker 4: you out the breast. I love how you use your
32:19
Speaker 4: platform to speak truth to power. And we all got
32:22
Speaker 4: to do it, y'all because God is watching it. One
32:26
Speaker 4: day he gonna say, but what did you do with
32:28
Speaker 4: the blessings Eye bestowed upon you?
32:30
Speaker 1: What did you do with the influence. Did you just
32:33
Speaker 1: use it for yourself or did you try to help others?
32:36
Speaker 1: Did Boosy reach out to you? Boosy said he was
32:38
Speaker 1: gonna reach out here. He did, he did.
32:40
Speaker 3: Well, what happened with Booty case, I know that Boosy said,
32:42
Speaker 3: Louisiana is kicking his ass, kicking his butt.
32:44
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I do think there are times when
32:50
Speaker 4: people try to use their authority to come after people
32:55
Speaker 4: who are in our community, who have high profiles, and
32:59
Speaker 4: they do an intention and so I know they did
33:03
Speaker 4: it with NBA young boy. We were able to get
33:05
Speaker 4: him a bell and that was Louisanna. I think they're
33:09
Speaker 4: doing it with Boots. I think they do it to
33:11
Speaker 4: a lot of us envy. So in short order, we've
33:15
Speaker 4: broke down Boots's case.
33:17
Speaker 1: We think he's gonna be fine.
33:20
Speaker 4: I've worked with great lawyers and Louisana like attorney James
33:23
Speaker 4: Williams Tez and Sue Anne Robinson helped me on that case.
33:28
Speaker 4: And it was really one of those things, just doing
33:30
Speaker 4: the legal research and so forth, saying this is where
33:35
Speaker 4: I believe their bark is worse than their bike. And
33:38
Speaker 4: so I said, if they come for you, we'll have
33:40
Speaker 4: the community ready, and that's why it's good to work
33:43
Speaker 4: for the lawyers around the country. So it ain't just
33:45
Speaker 4: Ben Crump. But when you call Ben Crump, he's calling
33:48
Speaker 4: his network of attorneys saying, Hey, how do we help Bootsy,
33:52
Speaker 4: how do we help you know, I'm gonna look at
33:55
Speaker 4: Tod Dollar signed brother. He believes in a lot believe
33:59
Speaker 4: or wrongfully in California. So we're gonna look at those
34:03
Speaker 4: cases because that's what we have to do, Envy. We
34:07
Speaker 4: have to be there to answer to bell fire people.
34:10
Speaker 4: And I smile when you say, Boots, just call the office.
34:14
Speaker 4: When you put it on social media, I got a
34:16
Speaker 4: hundred calls.
34:17
Speaker 1: Boots are trying to get you crumped.
34:22
Speaker 2: Had the Trump administration targeted you anyway?
34:25
Speaker 4: I'm sure I'm on some enemy lists, but I try
34:27
Speaker 4: not to think about it, because you know, I have
34:31
Speaker 4: the honor of representing the family of Malcolm X. You know,
34:34
Speaker 4: and this was sixty one years ago. They were targeting
34:38
Speaker 4: our people, and I don't think nothing has changed with
34:41
Speaker 4: the CIA or the FBI. Tell them I think you
34:44
Speaker 4: and me both on this enemy's list. Brother, h you know,
34:49
Speaker 4: come with me. We know who we are, whose we
34:51
Speaker 4: are and I refuse to be afraid. I tell my
34:56
Speaker 4: security and everybody all, I refuse to let them make
35:02
Speaker 4: us live in fear, standing up, fighting for our children's future.
35:06
Speaker 1: And you know.
35:08
Speaker 4: God has ordered our steps, and whatever happens, I want
35:14
Speaker 4: my daughter, I want our children to know we believed
35:17
Speaker 4: in them so much we were willing to fight for them,
35:20
Speaker 4: sacrifice for them, and if need be, die for our children.
35:24
Speaker 1: Man.
35:24
Speaker 4: I Lyn really got to see that black people believe
35:27
Speaker 4: in black liberation. And just like and I mean this
35:32
Speaker 4: from the heart, just like they are unapologetic in their
35:37
Speaker 4: white supremacist beliefs, we have to be unapologetic defenders of
35:42
Speaker 4: black life, black liberty, and black culture.
35:46
Speaker 1: I mean now more than ever, y'all.
35:47
Speaker 4: They they saying it, well, they chest how they think
35:50
Speaker 4: we're inferior. We got to say it with our chest.
35:53
Speaker 4: Now we think black is the greatest thing and we
35:56
Speaker 4: don't care. And we got to say it a hundred
35:57
Speaker 4: times over, Like Jesse just saying, you know, we got
36:00
Speaker 4: to talk about I am somebody because everybody in society
36:04
Speaker 4: try to tell a little black boys and girls you
36:06
Speaker 4: ain't nobody.
36:08
Speaker 3: Now, what did Jesse you mention?
36:09
Speaker 1: Jesse Jackson rest in peace. Jesse Jackson.
36:11
Speaker 2: What did Jesse Jackson mean to you?
36:13
Speaker 1: Man?
36:13
Speaker 4: You know, for the greater part of my life. I'm
36:17
Speaker 4: in the fifties. You know, Jesse was the standard bear
36:21
Speaker 4: for civil rights that we knew. And the thing I
36:24
Speaker 4: remember the be specific I remember. You know, you fight
36:29
Speaker 4: the campaigns, you get people who show up for the cameras,
36:34
Speaker 4: and then when the cameras go, you see people showing
36:37
Speaker 4: up on a consistent Bacey Jesse, even the old age,
36:40
Speaker 4: was still trying to show up.
36:42
Speaker 1: And I have to salute that.
36:44
Speaker 4: I'll never forget we were and I won't call the corporation,
36:47
Speaker 4: but we were representing agents of a certain insurance company
36:52
Speaker 4: where they were ran lining in the black agents where
36:54
Speaker 4: they could never make as much as the young white
36:58
Speaker 4: boys and girls.
36:58
Speaker 1: Who was twenty years there, junior.
37:01
Speaker 4: And we were in federal court in Chicago, and you know,
37:04
Speaker 4: I believe, like third good. We got to fight in
37:06
Speaker 4: the court of public opinion, in the court of law,
37:08
Speaker 4: and one of the states. One of the agents was
37:12
Speaker 4: Jesse Jackson's insurance agent, who was one of the class
37:15
Speaker 4: action representatives. So I asked Reverend Jackson to come to court,
37:19
Speaker 4: and we were in court envy. And we were there
37:21
Speaker 4: for about four or five hours at this federal here,
37:25
Speaker 4: and the judge was really giving it to me, man
37:28
Speaker 4: and my team.
37:29
Speaker 1: I mean, he was coming.
37:30
Speaker 4: At us left and right, and you know you're like, man,
37:35
Speaker 4: this ain't gonna go well for us, and so forth,
37:38
Speaker 4: and you know you had a defeat. This mentality stunting
37:41
Speaker 4: to set in a little bit, and we went on break. Man.
37:45
Speaker 4: Reverend Jackson got me in the corner and he said,
37:48
Speaker 4: he said, Attorney Crump Man, you gotta remember, you don't
37:52
Speaker 4: drown because the water is deep. He said, you drown
37:57
Speaker 4: because you stopped kicking. He said, our people can never
38:01
Speaker 4: see our leaders or people they believe in, stop kicking.
38:05
Speaker 4: He said, you just always gotta keep kicking.
38:07
Speaker 1: Man.
38:07
Speaker 4: He said, you keep kicking, you will make it to
38:09
Speaker 4: the shore. You keep kicking, you'll overcome.
38:12
Speaker 1: But you just gotta keep kicking.
38:14
Speaker 4: I don't care what the ours are, I don't care
38:16
Speaker 4: how the cars are stacked against you. You just keep kicking.
38:21
Speaker 4: And I was like, wow, you know, all right, just
38:24
Speaker 4: let's go. And as fate would have it, man, we
38:27
Speaker 4: went back in court for another hour or so, and
38:30
Speaker 4: the judge, even though he berated us and talked down
38:33
Speaker 4: to us, like Thirdgod Marsha got talked down to And
38:36
Speaker 4: that's part of it. You know, you gotta understand that
38:41
Speaker 4: the system really doesn't think black people supposed.
38:45
Speaker 1: To get equal justice.
38:46
Speaker 4: Every bit of justice we get, every ounce we get,
38:49
Speaker 4: we gotta fight for it. We been making that court
38:52
Speaker 4: room and the judge denied. They motion to dismiss, and
38:55
Speaker 4: I said, man, what a legacy to jessep We just
38:58
Speaker 4: writing now more than ever in this here black people.
39:00
Speaker 1: We just got to keep kicking.
39:04
Speaker 7: Is a very important piece of literature, especially for the
39:08
Speaker 7: youth right. I heard that it's gonna be a book
39:10
Speaker 7: of series. This is the first book, yes writing more. Yes,
39:14
Speaker 7: is it gonna be You're gonna change it up. It's
39:16
Speaker 7: gonna be the same storyline like a continuous story, or it's.
39:19
Speaker 4: Gonna be the same main characters like Bowleie Cooper as
39:23
Speaker 4: our black version of Perry Mason.
39:25
Speaker 1: And what people don't realize Jess is man.
39:28
Speaker 4: Perry Mason was written by Aaron Stanley in the nineteen
39:33
Speaker 4: twenties and nineteen thirties. So one hundred years later, we
39:38
Speaker 4: are still talking about Perry Mason. They're still making movies
39:42
Speaker 4: based on that character. So I would hope that you
39:45
Speaker 4: know we were our children children will be talking about
39:50
Speaker 4: Bollie Cooper and his investigator Cape saying, you know, Princess Avarez,
39:55
Speaker 4: the smart Hispanic sister from Puerto Rico, who's on his team,
39:59
Speaker 4: who a lawyer, and all that kind of stuff, because
40:02
Speaker 4: we want to have our heroes people look like us.
40:05
Speaker 4: And so we are cautiously optimistic that the book is
40:09
Speaker 4: selling great.
40:10
Speaker 1: I want you know about books, keep going and keep
40:14
Speaker 1: buying them.
40:14
Speaker 4: Tell everybody who's listening, go right now and go to
40:17
Speaker 4: Amazon barsing over your black bookstores. Are they audit because
40:22
Speaker 4: the more people buy, the more opportunity we have to
40:26
Speaker 4: keep writing books about our cases, our stories.
40:30
Speaker 2: This is my last question.
40:31
Speaker 5: At this stage in your life and career, what does
40:34
Speaker 5: this book represent for you personally?
40:36
Speaker 2: Is it a warning? Is it a release or or
40:39
Speaker 2: a legacy move?
40:40
Speaker 4: I think it's a combination of warning and legacy. And
40:45
Speaker 4: the reason it's a warning, Charlemagne, is that Bolie Cooper,
40:51
Speaker 4: even though they got so many things pointing to the truth,
40:57
Speaker 4: the point where this black man should get justice, his
41:02
Speaker 4: family should get justice. It doesn't matter. The system doesn't
41:09
Speaker 4: care about the truth. The system cares about the system,
41:16
Speaker 4: and what we have to understand is that we have
41:20
Speaker 4: to make sure our young people are more intelligent than
41:25
Speaker 4: those who will seek to oppress them. That's what this
41:28
Speaker 4: book is about. The warning in the legacy because you
41:31
Speaker 4: hear how bro Lee in them. Even though they denying
41:34
Speaker 4: the man bail, even though he's paralyzed, they want to
41:36
Speaker 4: put him in prison because not only are they trying
41:39
Speaker 4: to kill him, they trying to kill the truth and
41:41
Speaker 4: everything about it. Just like with George Floyd when they
41:44
Speaker 4: assassinated him, they had to assassinate his character.
41:47
Speaker 1: And so that's the one piece.
41:49
Speaker 4: But the legacy piece of it is this man I love,
41:53
Speaker 4: and please write reviews black people. A lot of writers said,
41:59
Speaker 4: publishing company, you know, they part of American coaching. I
42:02
Speaker 4: remember the movie where Philadelphia, where Denzel Washington says that
42:08
Speaker 4: famous line he said, in this court room everything is colorblind,
42:13
Speaker 4: and he said, jeedge regrettably, we don't live in this
42:17
Speaker 4: courtroom in America.
42:19
Speaker 1: Publishing companies everything.
42:21
Speaker 4: They go by what they see happening, and so we
42:26
Speaker 4: need people writing reviews on good Reads and Amazon. And
42:31
Speaker 4: one of the best things this lady said to me
42:34
Speaker 4: after reading the book, and I don't want to give
42:35
Speaker 4: it away because it got a legal a lot of
42:38
Speaker 4: twisting turns, plots and everything changes, she said, and she
42:44
Speaker 4: was crying. We've been having these this worse than a
42:46
Speaker 4: lot of Book two. We've been going to all these cities.
42:48
Speaker 4: We were at Howard Law School last night. We're gonna
42:51
Speaker 4: be at Newark, New Jersey Symphony Hall tonight with Mayor
42:54
Speaker 4: Rod's Baraka. But she said, Attorney Crump is so happy
43:01
Speaker 4: to read your book into where we can find black
43:05
Speaker 4: joy in each other. She said, that's where she took
43:09
Speaker 4: away from it, and that made me feel like it
43:14
Speaker 4: is why we do this. The fact that there was
43:17
Speaker 4: one reviewer who said this was a great legal thriller
43:22
Speaker 4: novel written by us for us, about us, our struggles,
43:29
Speaker 4: our community, and our victories and our gods.
43:35
Speaker 1: And I said, wow.
43:37
Speaker 4: I mean people are writing their reviews on their own,
43:40
Speaker 4: and that's what heartens me. But we got to write
43:43
Speaker 4: those reviews, as Charlemagne knows, and everybody wrote a book
43:46
Speaker 4: because you can't trust their numbers and stuff always. But
43:50
Speaker 4: when you see the reviews keep coming in, you're like, no, Na,
43:53
Speaker 4: somebody somebody reading the book, and so I thank you all, Charlemagne, Lauren, Envy, Jess, Queen,
44:03
Speaker 4: y'all were in this together.
44:05
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
44:07
Speaker 3: Absolutely appreciate you always into the phone.
44:09
Speaker 6: I'm just seeing her thinking like you've been doing a
44:11
Speaker 6: lot of things, but you always enter the phone for us,
44:12
Speaker 6: right hey, Lauren.
44:14
Speaker 4: And I appreciate the cause when we're trying to use
44:17
Speaker 4: our platforms to help our people tell our stories.
44:21
Speaker 1: So you keep doing what you do.
44:23
Speaker 3: Queen Attorney Benjamin Crump, It's the Breakfast Club.
44:26
Speaker 2: Good morning, thank you, yes.
44:28
Speaker 1: Sir, every day a week ago up the Breakfast Club.
44:34
Speaker 1: Finished for y'all. Done,