At some point you have to say, you know, it
brings it to you, it brings that energy to you.
So my thing is that as institutions, as
politicians, and things like that, at some
point we have got to stop saying that.
Because if we keep doing it, what are we going
to leave behind?
So I don't want us to walk out and say, my
thing has to be a different kind of piece.
It's beautiful. Unbelievable.
And so it has all those elements in it, so if
we take those elements,
listen, when we put the quilt together this
morning, everybody's come from a different walk
of life.
So we've already connected stuff, you know.
So I just want to say that, Congressman, question.
Oh, I'm sorry, I have two.
First question, how have you come to your faith?
And second question, your opinion is on the
path of democracy and capitalism.
Yeah, good questions, thank you.
Well, the way I came to my faith, you know, I'm
really looking for the person who has gone from
one religious group to another
to explain to me exactly why they did it.
I have to be honest with you, I really don't know.
I can tell you that, and so many of y'all, I
imagine, there's a lot, you must be a converse too.
Here's what I know.
I know that I was raised in a Catholic household.
And I'm going to tell you, my mom's so Catholic
that when the Pope showed up in Congress the
other day, she was my guest.
And I'm hungry to know what you mean by all
praises due to God.
We never had no religious groups in my household.
As a matter of fact, most of the religious
arguing was between my Catholic mother and my
Baptist minister brother.
That's most of the, oh, doing that.
But me and them, we haven't had no issue.
In fact, when they were attacking me when I
first ran for Congress, they all wanted to
stand up and defend me.
My brother said, I'm going to beat it with my
collar wall, man.
You know, Dennis Prager, you know this guy?
He's a radio guy.
He was running me down real ugly in 2006 saying
I was worse than Osama Bin Laden.
My mom called the show.
Mom, don't do that.
Bless her heart, she's something else.
But anyway, so I was raised in a Catholic household.
For me, maybe it was me not listening or maybe
it was the folks who were supposed to be
teaching me.
Somehow it just was do's and don'ts and rules.
I didn't identify with it.
The more I studied about American history, I
kind of started feeling like religion was used
as a tool to maintain a slave.
Is that really true about Christianity? No.
But was it used that way? Yes.
You know, you can watch 12 Years a Slave and see.
You know, all the stuff.
Anyway, long story short, I just kind of got, I
just wasn't into it.
I went through a period in my teens when I was
sort of agnostic, maybe even a little atheistic.
But I always had a spiritual journey.
I've always been the kind of person to look at
a sunset and just be in one.
And so sometime when I got to Wayne State in
Detroit, Michigan, I mean I had heard it's
basically two Muslims.
But I didn't really know any.
I heard of Muhammad Ali and I thought he was
the baddest brother around.
Not because he was a great boxer, because there
were other boxers who I didn't admire.
But because when they told him, we're going to
take your belt if you don't go fight in our war.
He's like, take it.
I'm like, what?
Hitting somebody in the head is not my idea of
tough, you can be a bully doing that.
But what he did was the toughest, most, oh my
God, this guy.
He rejected the whole world in order to
maintain its integrity.
I just thought that was awesome.
And then I had read the autobiography of
Malcolm X and I just thought, this guy is cool.
But I didn't know any.
So I ended up at Wayne State.
One day I was studying calculus on a Friday.
And this friend of mine who was born in Libya,
of all places, he's a wonderful guy, still a
friend of mine.
His name is Mafta Ben Isa.
He says, well, I got to go.
I said, what do you mean you got to go?
We're in the middle of our study session.
We got a test on Monday.
I don't understand this stuff.
Neither do you.
What you going for?
Someone got to take care of it.
I said, well, where?
This thing called Juma.
What's that?
Well, come on.
I'll show it to you.
I walk up.
There's all these shoes on the ground.
You got to take your shoes off?
I hope my socks are matching.
So I go in there.
There's no chairs.
I sit on the floor.
Sit on the floor?
Oh, man.
But what I heard that day was compelling.
And I don't even know who the speaker was, the
Kutib, of course, but there's folks in
here who don't know that language.
But I don't know who the speaker was that day,
put it like that, who was given the Sermon
that day, but it was compelling.
And the guy, and I'll never forget him, he was
talking about the mission of Muhammad.
He wasn't talking about Islam.
He was talking about the mission of Muhammad.
He was talking about how here's a guy inspired
by God to preach on justice, freeing people
who were slaves, standing up against
constituted authority, speaking against unfair economic
This guy was an orphan.
He was born in poverty.
He was on his own.
His father died before he was born.
His mother died before he was six.
And yet he had a reputation for great honesty.
When he got to the age of maturity, he stood up
for justice.
And he was talking about this and other things.
And so I went back.
And I went back.
And I was impressed by the camaraderie and the brotherhood.
Nobody was trying to like, no, you've got to be
this, and you've got to have a beard,
and you've got to be straight with a Mishwack stick.
All the aesthetics, all the superficial stuff.
And the guy told me, he said, look, I'm not
about a hairstyle or about an article of clothing.
It's not even about changing your name.
We don't want to.
It's about the divine unity, the fact that
everything is one thing and connected to everything.
And then one day they said, if you want to take
Shahada, which just means witness.
And I stood up and did it.
And ever since then, I was a Muslim.
That was about October.
By the time November rolls around, I hadn't
told nobody in my family.
I was 19 years old.
My mom, like, and I told you a little bit about her.
She went to school in New Orleans, but she's
from Natchitoches, Louisiana.
And to my mom, food is love, and love is food.
You eat her food, that makes you feel happy.
You don't eat it, it's like, what's wrong with you?
So my mom, Honey, I got this ham.
It's good ham.
This ham, you're going to love this ham.
I'm like, mom, I'm having string beans.
Do the everything you're working on.
All these Muslims go through this.
And I want to appreciate the turkey steak today
and all that.
But what I wanted to say, you know, I said, I'm
a Muslim.
You ain't no Muslim.
I am a Muslim.
You don't know what a Muslim is.
So we have this conversation, and she's like,
you know, making me ask 30 questions about
being a Muslim.
And she said, well, okay, you're a Muslim then.
He's doing some more.
More for me.
You eat his ham, I'll have his.
So that's how that kind of happened.
And then after that, you know, I just read
more, studied more, and all of that.
I can tell you, when I ran for Congress, I
mean, and that was when I was 19.
I ran for Congress when I was 42.
I'm 52 now.
I'm 43.
And my faith really, really came to life for me
during that time.
Because I was in the Minnesota state
legislature for two terms.
I brought my man to do the opening prayer.
Nobody cared.
I'm telling you, it was not black guys and one
Mexican and a Puerto Rican.
That was it.
Everybody else was white.
Norwegian, Scandinavian, you know, how they are
in Minnesota.
Nobody cared at all.
Religion never came up.
We argued about a bunch of other stuff, but not religion.
Anyway, when I ran for Congress, it's like,
bam, you know, a Muslim is going to be in Congress.
Oh, my God, what does this mean?
You make your wife, you know, walk behind you.
You know, is she allowed to say anything?
All this stuff.
And, you know, they asked me how I feel about
Israel and all this kind of stuff.
And so it was like a big thing.
And I really didn't understand it because I had
never had no problems.
I was a politician for four years and never had
to deal with the issue really.
You know, I mean, it was only in a positive way.
How come you ain't, you know, if you want some
of this, don't eat it.
Why aren't you eating curves or ramen?
Oh, well, what's that?
Never a problem.
Just sort of explaining.
So there you go, man.
It's been an interesting journey.
Is Islam compatible with democracy and capitalism?
Let me just tell you this.
There are times when I feel that not much of
anything is compatible with capitalism.
I'm not a socialist or a communist.
I believe in free enterprise.
I believe in opening your own business.
But I also believe that capitalism is a system
that if not regulated can lead to tremendous harm.
I also believe that capitalism really can be
very much of a benefit to people because it
allows people to be productive and creative and
benefit from what they're doing.
But, you know, I can tell you that it was back
in the 1890s when we learned that if we don't
put some regulations on these capitalists,
they will externalize costs and internalize benefit.
What does that mean?
That means this factory that I'm making, all
y'all got to deal with the pollution that I'm
putting out there.
But the money, that's mine.
You understand what I'm saying?
I mean, capitalism allows people, at one time,
capitalism said you could trade in people. Right?
So my point is, not that I want free
enterprise, but capitalism needs to be
regulated for environmental reasons, for labor
rights reasons, for consumer.
Capitalism might say, I might tell you that
this is water or it's just a clear liquid.
You guess what it really is.
For consumers.
So, yeah, capitalism, as long as, and then
here's the other problem with capitalism.
It's not that good for small business all the time.
If I'm a big business, let's just say I'm doing
a coal business.
Does Texas produce coal?
It's not really coal, it's more oil, gas.
Let's just say you've got a coal company and
you're digging coal out the ground.
You know, skip all the environmental problems.
Let's just say you've got some little guy in a
garage who's figured out a way to harness the
sun to make energy.
Why didn't that big capitalist buy off this
little guy, put his patent on a shelf somewhere?
So this is why we need antitrust legislation,
to make sure that there is, in fact, competition.
Capitalism can lead to push-you-down competition.
So, I don't want anybody to sort of think, oh,
that Ellison, he's a communist.
I'm not.
I am a business owner myself.
I owned and operated my own law firm for seven years.
I charge fees.
If you didn't pay me...
I won't do that.
Or if you promised to pay me and you didn't, I
might end up suing you.
And did it.
More than once.
So don't think, oh, this guy, he's not...
No, I definitely believe in free enterprise.
I just believe that anybody who has a belief
that capitalism fell down from Heaven, that's
just absurd.
And everyone who is a true capitalist knows that.
Only the ideologues don't know that.
When it comes with Islam, and by the way, if
you think that Islam is not compatible with capitalism,
I know some incredibly capitalistic Muslims.
So there ain't no problem there.
Now, when it comes to democracy, I have seen no
conflict within Islam and democracy.
You've got to understand, Islam is this diverse.. .
Islam is an incredibly diverse religion.
You've got Sunni Muslims.
Within Sunni Islam, you've got the different schools.
You've got the Maliki school.
You've got different ways to understand Islam.
Then you've got the Shia thing.
You've got the Twelvers.
You've got the Aga Khanis.
I mean, you've got all kinds of Muslims in this
world who understand Islam differently.
So I see your hand.
So let me just tell you this.
There is a certain kind of Muslim, like there's
a certain kind of Christian and a certain kind
of Jew,
who believes that they have all the answers,
that no one else has them,
and if you don't agree with them, they can kill you.
They exist. They are there.
Then there's a whole bunch of other Muslims,
like the Sufi Muslim who believes,
peace and love, God's everywhere, God's...
And so the thing is, of course there is.
Now let's just look at a few basic features of
American democracy.
Congress shall make no law establishing a state religion,
or abridge the free exercise thereof.
That's the first clause of the First Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution.
Has anybody ever heard, there's no compulsion
in religion? Yes.
It is actually un-Islamic and conflicts with
the Quran to try to make somebody be any religion,
including a Muslim.
Allah converts.
And by the way, don't be scared of the word Allah.
If you go to Bethlehem, which is in the Middle East,
you will find people who have been Christian
before anybody in Europe ever even heard of the term.
And you know who they pray to? Allah.
And they all pray.
And at the top of the church, you know,
So it's just a word, it just means the God, right?
So, and then in terms of like, you know, and
then, by the way,
there's one thing that America and the early
Muslim Sahabas have very much in common.
We have a society that's not based on race,
tribe, or anything like that.
The Constitution of Medina was a document,
drafted that included Muslims, Jews, the
immigrants, the people who were already there.
Everybody who lived in the community was in the
Ummah, which just means community.
And it said, it wrote down the rights of everyone.
One of the things it said is no Jew will ever
be harmed for being one.
Oh, and by the way, there was another separate
document that Muhammad, peace and blessings be
upon him,
drafted with the monks of St. Catherine, who
have a monastery in the Sinai Peninsula,
where he said, if anyone attacks you, we will
not fight with you, we'll fight for you.
And he said, if any of my followers do anything
to harm your church, you let me know.
There was another occasion where a Jewish man
died and was having a funeral procession.
Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him,
stands up.
The other believers are like, why are you
standing up? He's not one of us.
He's like, we have respect for all people up there.
So this is our religion, right?
And in fact, there are tremendous commonalities
between Islam and Christianity.
And it took until the year 328 until Christians
finally made some kind of decision about the
Unitarians and the Trinitarians.
In fact, there was a time in Christian history
when Christianity was amazingly similar to Islam.
You know what I mean? During the Unitarian phase.
And so, there's no real, I don't see any
conflict, you know.
There's this concept of Shura, which means consultation.
If you're a Muslim leader, you're not supposed
to just do stuff.
In fact, you have violated the rules if you
don't sit down with the folks and say, here's
what I'm thinking about, what do y'all think?
You have to do that.
Anybody who's just playing Lone Ranger with the
community, you can't do that.
And then there's this other concept called
beya, where you're supposed to pledge support
for somebody.
Now why can't you have beya just every two
years or every four years or every six years?
Get rid of them if they're not doing the right thing.
So there's really no conflict at all.
Don't let people tell you there's a conflict.
And, you know, anyway.
I'm going to tell you, I was just, you know,
there's a 20th anniversary coming up.
The 20th anniversary of when a man named
Yitzhak Rabin, who was the Prime Minister of
Israel, was murdered by an Israeli Jew for the
offense of making peace with the Palestinians.
Because he said, it's all about us, man.
We ain't working with nobody.
And so is that most Israelis? I don't believe
that. I don't believe so.
But these particular ones thought so.
Anyway, thank you for the question.
Let me add on to something that you said.
When you go to Jerusalem, for 400 years,
Muslims have opened the church for the
Christians there in Jerusalem.
That's true.
For 400 years.
The church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The church of the keys, yes, that was built by,
what's his name, Steve, out of New York.
He was the one who financed the church.
But the Muslim was trusted to open the church
door for the Christians and those who make the
pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
So, to go to see that is something that I think
a lot of people need to go see.
And you will see how they trusted the Muslims
and even opened the house of worship for Christians.
Well, the truth is the different Christian
sects were arguing over who was going to hold
the key to the door of the church.
And they were debating this and they couldn't
get along.
And they said, okay, we'll just let the Muslims
do it.
So, anyway, there's a lot more to be told.
I think the gentleman right down there.
So, basically, in your faith, it's like the
Baptists fighting the Catholics fighting the
Presbyterians fighting the Assembly of God and
the Pentecostals.
But still, they all believe in one God.
It's very similar to that.
And I'm glad you made that observation because,
now, I don't mean to offend anyone, but I'm
just speaking my mind.
You do have a group of people who have a very,
very narrow interpretation.
They follow a guy named Muhammad Ibn Abu Wahhab.
And these people are what you call
fundamentals, right?
But even they make up stuff that's not there,
so whatever.
But these people, they don't even mark graves.
So, this is weird to me.
You cannot put your mama's name where you
buried her in their way of thinking.
How many of y'all went to Hajj?
You've gone to the...
The Prophet's grave.
Yeah, but you don't know that these are
incredibly narrow folks, you know.
And so, thank you for the question.
I think it's very appropriate.
Yes, Sir?
I just had three quick things.
First of all, much of what Congressman said,
it's in the book.
Much of it is in the book.
The other thing that I wanted to say was, I
know you mentioned in the book that your mother
was from the county of Natchitoches.
And I heard the story that we have in
something, Natchitoches.
We have Natchitoches in Texas.
It's said to be made by two different brothers.
Was that right?
Yeah, Natchitoches, yes.
And I was born in Detroit.
I was born in Toledo.
That's right down the street.
So, we have that in common.
That's basically all that I wanted to say.
Enjoy the book.
Tremendously outstanding book.
Bill Mantris.
I didn't want to put it down when I first wrote it.
One question.
Well, let me just say, we've got another book
coming out.
And if anybody here has a book out or is
writing one, and I urge you all to do that,
I'd love to read it to you.
That was the last thing I wanted to say.
In regards to Jim's question, there is a book
by, I think we picked up last year,
one of our functions by Brother Utga.
It's called Islam and Western Democracy.
I think you'll find it.
That's a good book.
Yeah, that's a good book.
I don't believe that works.
I wonder, when you had the courage of Islam and Muslim.
Even the day I got kind of a little beside myself.
I wanted to ask you, what did you think was the
outcome of that?
Even though I know some said, well, we think
Congressman's kind of on the crime.
Yeah, well, let me just say this, man.
I did not have any interest in being the focal
point of that hearing.
What happened is Peter King, who held the
hearing, I told him, I said, look, man,
because let me tell you, these guys say a lot
of anti-Muslim things that the world doesn't
know about,
because me and Andre, who's the other Muslim,
we don't go and just jam people in the public
right off the bat.
They say something insane, and we'll go sit
down next to them and try to talk to them.
Now, most of them are like, oh, we're sorry, whatever.
Now, so Peter King is like, oh, yeah, when I
get to be chairman of the Homeland Security Committee,
I'm going to have a whole bunch of hearings on
how bad you people are.
And so I said, don't do that, Peter.
And by the way, there's a bunch of Muslims
we're not bragging about.
We agree there are some Muslims who do engage
in acts of terrorism.
How can we deny it?
That's wrong.
But by the way, statistically speaking, the
Muslims are not the leading cause of terrorism,
even in America.
There's statistical evidence to show that it's
still the white supremacist groups that are
leading the ban on that.
Anyway, long story short, we tried to talk to them.
I said, look, have a hearing on extremism,
violent extremism, but then get all the violent extremists,
talk about everybody, don't just talk about.
You can talk about these Muslims.
I'm trying to defend them, but make sure you
also talk about the Klan and the neo-Nazi
groups and all of them.
So he's like, no, only you guys.
So we go back and forth.
And then he says to me, I'll tell you what I do
for you.
You can testify.
I said, I wasn't sure I should do it, because
if I go in here, am I going to somehow like
live credibility to this other thing?
I wasn't sure what to do.
And I came to the conclusion after talking to
some folks, you know, you've got to be part of
the conversation.
You can't let him just sing the solo, man.
You've got to be in there, too.
So I decided to do it.
So the night before the hearing, I was reading
my testimony.
And I got to this point about this guy in
Muhammad Salman Hamdani, 23-year-old kid who
was a first responder.
As most people will run out of 9-11 and the
Twin Towers, he is running into it to try to
save people.
23-year-old Pakistani-born kid moved to the
United States, had young Jedi on his license
plates of his car because he liked Star Wars.
Played football, not soccer, not cricket, but
American football.
I know in Texas y'all love some football.
So anyway, this kid gives his life to try to
save people, so I was writing about him.
The night before, I was reading my testimony to
some people who I was just trying to give some
reactions to.
And one of them says, you know, Keith, if
you're going to talk about Hamdani, you better
call his mom because she's going to be at the
hearing and you don't want to surprise her with that.
So I called the lady.
Thought it was going to be a five-minute phone call.
It ended up being an hour.
She was talking so tenderly about her son.
Can you imagine your 23-year-old son who dies
trying to save other people?
First of all, the grief and loss, you just
can't even imagine.
But then he did it heroically and selfishly.
In fact, he lived the best and noblest values
that she had ever taught him, right?
And then on top of that, and this is absolute,
this is controversial, but I am writing and
this is true.
The New York Post scandalized this boy when
they couldn't find him.
And said he was in with the terrorists.
And they went on and that.
And Hamdani and I got into a big, fat, ugly
blowout over this issue, who I have no respect
for that guy.
But it happened.
We got documented evidence of the other.
I'm not just making up stuff.
They're making up stuff.
But then about months later, they did say,
okay, we were wrong about him.
They did.
After they dragged him through the mud, they
eventually cleaned it up.
And I made the point that they dragged his name
through the mud, is the hearing.
But anyway, I'm reading through my testimony.
I'm doing fine, doing fine.
And I start talking about this kid.
And I start thinking about his mother.
And I start thinking about friends that all of
us have.
He got off airplanes.
You know, all the crazy stuff people are going through.
And my throat started getting tight.
My lungs started getting weak.
I started feeling sweat.
And before you knew it, then I'm like, oh, my goodness.
Okay, now, so I was truly embarrassed.
I really thought I let everybody down.
I was feeling really bad.
Because, I mean, I'm up here, you know.
It's embarrassing.
But Peter King had a plan for that hearing.
What was his plan?
After the hearing, I stuck it to the other
Muslim terrorist.
I'm going to fight him.
I'm going to get him.
But he said things like 80% of the mosques are
harboring terrorists and radical.
He said all kinds of lies and crazy stuff.
Anyway, the headline was not him bragging on
how he was going to stick it to and scapegoat a
minority group,
a religious minority group.
The headline was me.
And I was not happy to be in that spot.
But I was in that spot.
And kind of gave sympathy to the community that
had been through a lot.
Like last week, I was with these three kids.
And this is the thing about a lot of Muslims
who are not black.
And a lot of them, in my opinion, they're a
little shocked that America can be so great,
but also can be so racist to them.
They're a little surprised.
We could have told you this.
I mean, these three beautiful kids.
This little dude was a dentist student in North Carolina.
Was going, giving free dental care to
low-income people in North Carolina.
And went to Syria to do the same thing.
He wasn't just worried about people who were Syrian.
He was worried about people in his neighborhood.
And gets shot down by this guy.
And the police department says, oh, it was a
sparked parking dispute.
And of course, this is completely untrue.
They even said it before they even knew what happened.
They didn't want to call a hate crime.
So I think all of that kind of stuff just came
tumbling out.
And that's the only way I figure.
That's the only way I can explain my behavior now.
We had a good excuse, man.
Congressman, first, thank you for being here.
I'm really focused on what you're saying about
having a place at the table.
And getting involved.
And what you said earlier about finding the
commonalities within the communities.
To form partnerships and relationships that are
going to get our people into places of
positions of power,
and taking back the changes.
We had 6% turn out for our mayoral campaign. Sixteen?
Six percent.
So you can't do it with six.
But here's the thing about six.
If you organize, you can run the table.
That's the point.
We're not trying to do 10 or 15 points to make
a difference.
Very little effort on our community's part will
make a big difference in the local political circles.
And the mayor has a lot of power, man.
The mayor's dealing with zoning.
The mayor's dealing with economic development.
The mayor's dealing with contracting.
The mayor's dealing with labor relations.
You don't want to just say, oh, who doesn't matter?
Who's the mayor?
The mayor often times runs the police department.
I mean, you don't want to just say.
I mean, it's a huge thing, right?
And tell me your name again, man. Steven.
So maybe Steven and some other guys in your
program, George.
You know, it would be good for you to really
kind of get them thinking about, you know,
embracing and taking responsibility for the
benefit of their own community.
It's not about voting.
Think of voting as like one brick and a wall, right?
It really has to do, like what we're doing
right now is civic engagement, right?
But we need a lot more of it. Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
Yes, Sir.
Yeah, I wanted to comment a little bit on the
voting and voter rights.
I was reminded when we spoke about that
earlier, it's the best fact of the survey.
I actually watched a story about a fireman.
The fireman?
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And I remember, and I always think about this,
every time we start talking about voting restrictions
and undermining voter rights, there was an episode.
I forgot who was on the video.
I was talking about voting, and this guy made a
comment about more people voting.
And luckily, he spent 30 minutes arguing about,
you don't vote more than 30 people in a country vote.
I heard this when I was 22 years old.
And I've been hearing it ever since.
And now, I mean, I heard it all the way up
until you had expanded voting rights,
and then you started seeing things changing.
You started seeing land mayors.
You started seeing Hispanic mayors.
And now we're at a point now where, I mean, it
appears to me that,
and I'm not saying this is all the companies,
but that party has had it grained in them for
so long,
a real fear that if the wrong people begin to
run the country,
that's just why Obama has so many problems,
begin to run the country, it changes the country.
It actually changes the core of the country.
But I've heard some comments from the black
caucus about what you all have been thinking
about doing
about the voting restrictions.
Well, let me just say this.
I think we need to have two biases.
One is the right to vote.
And the other is exercising the right to vote.
There's two different boxes.
Because we can break our necks making sure who
has the legal right to vote,
but if we can't get people to the polls, then
what good is that?
We've got to, a lot of us just operate as if
making sure the right is intact, that people
will use it.
That is not true.
I'm telling you, there's a lot of people, you
know what the number one,
they get a poll among people who didn't vote.
And they ask, why didn't you vote?
You know what the number one reason was?
I don't have the time.
Think about that for a moment.
Because it seems kind of lame on the surface, right?
But here's the thing about it.
I don't have to get up and get on the bus at 5
to be at my work at 7, 30, or 8.
I don't have to get no little kids to school.
I don't have to leave my $7.50 hour job at noon
to get on another bus to go across town to make
another $7.50.
Because at my one McDonald job, they never want
me to get 40 hours,
because then they've got to give me the
benefits associated with that,
and they keep me part-time.
So now I've got to string together two or three
low-wage jobs.
You know, there's a lot of fault.
We have to remember how privileged we are to be
sitting at this table Saturday morning.
I mean, we really are, and it's a blessing.
And I think that if we keep in mind, there's a
lot of folks banging it out on, you know,
$12,000 a year.
You know what I mean?
If it wasn't for the food shop, Lord knows what
would happen.
You know, and these things, and it's not, and
it's all colors.
I mean, it's more people of color, more black
people, more brown people.
But there's a lot of white people in this
situation, too.
And I guarantee you it's true.
People maxed out on their credit cards.
That's what I was talking about, you know.
But see, the thing is, that's why early voting
is so important.
So if you can do souls to the polls.
Now, the same sister I was talking about on
Tuesday, got to get up at 5,
hope that her sister can come by to get the
kids on the bus,
because she's got to be working at 7, don't
have a car,
long ride, you know, all that story, hope to
get back before the polls close.
What if she could just go on Sunday, get on the
bus, souls to the polls? Right?
You know, that's why, or what if she moved,
and they don't have same-day voter registration?
You know, only eight states have same-day voter registration.
Minnesota has had it for a long, long time.
We had Tim Pawlenty, a Republican win.
We had Jesse Ventura, an Independent win.
And now we've got Mark Dayton, a Democrat win.
It doesn't favor anybody.
It favors people who will get out and hustle.
But it allows us to do something very
interesting that I would love it
if you all could do here in the state of Texas.
We did something called knock and drag in Minnesota.
On election day, we just knock on the door and
drag them out.
You know what I mean?
Because they can register that day.
And so, we have never had no problems, none.
So, the real deal is they just don't want
people to vote.
Y'all can confirm this to me or correct me on this,
but I heard that here, a gun license is a valid
ID to vote,
but a student ID is not.
This is absurd.
It kind of tells you who they want to vote and
who they want to vote.
Kind of, you know, like wait, Nod, wink, right?
So, my point is it's really about power, power, power.
You got to understand it's about power.
And so much of human history is the battle
between the well-heeled few
and the struggling many.
And that's what democracy is all about.
Before, we had monarchies.
You know, these cats had to fight King George
to say that he's not going
to be the only one making decisions.
Of course, as soon as they got their freedom,
they did not until us.
You think they would have learned something.
But, you know, that's why we had the Civil War.
Over 200,000 black soldiers fought in the Civil
War, you know,
in one major battle and in some battles like
Fort Wagner,
took major casualties.
They used to say black people are scared of fighting.
They learn different.
The point is that, you know, it's a struggle,
you know,
and we have to keep the struggle going.
But like Gordon Parks, he wrote a book called
The Choice of Weapons.
And he said, my weapon is a camera. Right.
Yours can be a camera.
Let me ask a quick question.
Just a question.
When we say that people don't, when people say
that they don't have the time,
what is it about human beings at this point in
our life that the importance
of going to the polls to vote, that will make a
person say,
I don't have the time to go do it?
That's something.
What is it about, what has happened?
You know, what is it that has happened to those
of us,
the human beings, whomever, we understand as
African Americans,
what is it, to me when we say it, it's
something that's a disconnect
with a human being who will tell you that a
mother, you know,
a mother, she might just say a mother, maybe a
father, whatever.
I don't have the time to vote.
Well, let me tell you, I think that we need to,
those of us who do understand how critical it
is to vote,
let us take the responsibility on our shoulders
to make sure that
this hypothetical young person gets how
important it is.
Because here's another reason why people who do
vote for the first time,
they've done polls with people who voted for
the first time
and asked them, why didn't you vote?
And I'm going to tell you what the number one
answer is.
Somebody asked me.
My, one thing in the book is that my mother's
mother's mother
was a liberal lady named Coe.
And she never voted.
And she would say things like, I'm just an old
colored woman.
Everyone in the community loved her.
But she didn't think that voting is what black
people did.
She just didn't believe it.
You know what I mean?
And so my mother's mother's husband, a guy
named Frank Martinez,
my grandfather, who I never met, he was
organizing black voters
when it was definitely dangerous to do so.
You know?
And yet, he couldn't get his mother to vote.
He could get all these folks to vote, but he
couldn't get his mother
to vote.
Some people just, you know, they just, it's
conditioning to a certain extent.
But I think that those of us who do get it have
a certain responsibility
not to cast criticism, but to engage.
And like, you know, there's an old saying that says,
you don't fish with the bait you like, you fish
with the bait the fish likes.
So if it's faith that will get them to the
ballot box, use faith.
Souls to the polls.
If it's logic, use logic.
If it's financial, oh, do you know, there's a
lot of them.
Then whatever it is, think of the message that
you need to get them there.
If it's a riot, get the vans out.
Whatever, but those of us who have, who know,
have a duty to do something.
And I'm going to tell you this, as much as I
agree with you,
how in the world after what people went through
because you did not vote
and say you don't have time, how ridiculous is that?
It's plenty ridiculous.
But me sitting back thinking it's ridiculous is
not going to get them to the polls. Right.
What about, Keith, I was going to ask, before I
do that,
your friend is here, Mayor Carl Sherman from
Besoto, Texas down there made it. Amen.
Well, thank you.
As we talk about mayors.
So I'm right about how important the city is,
aren't I? Yes.
But talk about the experience in finding the
Qur'an that was used by Thomas Jefferson.
So, okay, so after, so here's the thing.
Right before the election, right before the
general election,
which made me the member of Congress for Minnesota,
I'm on late night cable access Somali language television.
I'm knowing it.
Ain't nobody watching. Nobody.
So this friend of mine who's running it, the
only reason I'm being honest
is because this friend of mine who was doing
the show asked me to.
I'm like, dude, are you kidding?
I'm tired.
But he said, look, Keith, you know, we've been friends.
I need you to do me this favor.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
So we go do this show, and he's like, if you
win, will you swear on the Qur'an?
And, you know, he's Somali, so, you know, he's
into it.
I said, I don't know.
He said, but you know, but if you win, will you?
I said, I haven't even thought about it
because, you know,
thinking about winning the election, I worry
about whether to swear or not after.
He goes, but can you imagine winning?
I said, yes, I can imagine winning.
In your imagination, what are you swearing, you know?
I said, okay, you got me.
You got me.
I'm swearing on the Qur'an.
All right, fine, whatever.
Next question.
So then I thought nobody was listening, but the
right-wing hate radio crew
was totally listening.
It went Berserk.
Yeah, and then what happened is, you know,
Dennis Prager's talking smack.
That's when my mom called him up and, you know,
gave him an earful.
And then, you know, all this.
And then actually, all these haters were
writing numbers in Congress,
denounce Keith Ellison.
Don't let him swear on the Qur'an.
Here's the problem.
The Constitution says there's no religious test
to hold office.
And you see all these same people saying I
can't swear on the Qur'an,
saying that they're constitutional conservatives.
They're just liars.
So anyway, somebody sent me a letter, and it
said, you should swear in
on Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an.
And I said, oh, now here, let him deal with the
All-Americans Qur'an.
I just want to ask, did you get a chance to
observe the 20th anniversary
of the Million Man March two weeks ago in
Washington, D.C.?
You know, I certainly did observe it.
Because of prior engagements, I could not be in D.C.
But I saw it.
A lot of it on television.
I wished it well.
I was at the first one.
But it was, I mean, I write about it in the book.
It's an amazing experience.
And I tell you, it was great to do it again.
And you know what?
A lot of people showed up.
A lot of young people.
A lot of young people showed up.
And we've got to keep on.
But see, here, things like this, man, we've got
to keep pulling people
back in.
And here's the other thing.
A lot of women spoke.
One friend of mine who's a Palestinian-American
named Linda Sarsour
was a speaker.
And Linda, you know, Linda's awesome.
And here's Linda, Arab-American.
She walked from New York to D.C. with the
Justice League.
And going to show, you know, we've got to knit
people together, you know?
That's the key.
Most people would say, well, what do some
blacks and some Arabs have together?
Well, it turns out, quite a bit.
You know what I mean?
I mean, human beings are human beings.
You know, we need to pull people together and
find the human solidarity.
That's right.
This is the missing element.
That's right.
You know, if you have people in a meeting and
in a discussion,
you can get them, you know, to talk about,
well, in my opinion,
I'm just better than you because I'm trying to
mount that situation.
And then, but if you don't even talk to them,
how do you even know
that's what they're thinking?
They might learn something.
That's right.
You know what I mean?
And a lot of people are afraid, you know.
As I was saying, the white working class is hit
with fear a lot.
Very much so.
They are hit with fear a lot.
Your woman making more money than you. Right?
The black people's going to rob you.
The Mexican's going to take your job.
The Muslim's going to bomb your house.
You know what I mean?
All this fear stuff.
You know, they ruin you using the fear.
They'll be afraid of your neighbor.
What's all this?
Why does everybody think they need a gun? Fear.
Why do you need a gun when you are afraid of something?
You know what I mean?
And so, you know, we've got to break the fear down.
You know what I mean?
So we've got to continue to reach out.
And so I thought that the event was wonderful,
and I'm glad you all did it.
I wish I could have been there.
It's just that, you know, when you start
committing to stuff, you know, you give your
word, you're going to be somewhere you better
show up.
One question comes from the lady when she was
sent down with America.
How was that?
I didn't happen to hear that. Yeah.
You know, I didn't hear that.
He used to gather all the so-called, whatever
the deal was, negative downplays of America
and put them all together on Fox to social media.
See, I didn't hear that particular message.
But think about this.
If you are going to leave your home, come to
Washington, D.C., and have a public demonstration
calling on the government to have fairer,
better policy, then embedded in there is the
hope that they might just do it.
So people who have been oppressed sometimes say
angry things, you know?
It's all, I mean, it's interesting to me, you
know, that we live in a society where
people will get upset because some people break
a window, a so-called riot, but don't
have a problem with broken backs, broken spines.
We've got to get our priorities straight, and I
think we've got to just accept the fact
that if you oppress people, they might get
pissed about it.
They might say something that's untoward.
They might say something poorly conceived and ill-tempered.
They might tell the truth.
They might tell the truth, but they might tell
the truth in an inflammatory way.
And so the thing is, this is what we've got to say.
I mean, Fox, well see, Fox, that's done by
trying to scare people.
Because Fox has the airwaves and the signal,
the capacity to go to their viewership and
say, you know what, this is the history of
African Americans.
This is the current situation in terms of
employment incarceration.
This is where they were absolutely denied
opportunities, and this might explain why
some of these folks aren't mad.
They don't do that.
They skip all the history and say, look at them.
Look at them.
Look how they're saying this.
Look how they're saying that.
And then, you know, Joe Sticks back, sitting
there thinking, I'm over here living in this,
you know, two-bedroom house that's underwater.
You know what I mean?
You know, my wife is a luck lady, and she makes
more money than I do.
I always wanted my kids to go to college, can't
afford it.
And now these people say this stuff.
You know what I mean?
I mean, it's just, they're feeding.
This is to manipulate people.
Fox News is a criminal enterprise.
I'm sorry.
This is my last question, too.
We've got to get him out of here.
This is just one quick question.
When you talk about people saying you don't
have time, my wife, full of micro-ethics,
stop saying you got time.
I wonder if you might even have time.
This is, this is proof that we might not be
mean to be as smart as we are,
but we can marry somebody who is.
I just want to say, Curtis, bless you, my brother.
Thank you for what you're doing.
Thank you for your support.
Thomas, thank you so much for inviting me down,
and bless all of you guys.
I want to take a tour of the venue before he
leaves, the cafe, and all that.
So he has to get out of here, get a plane.
At least I want him to bless the building by
having an opportunity to walk through.
If you're not members, please do so before you
leave today.
American Express, Visa, MasterCard, Bank of
America, and postage checks.
Have a good day.
Thank you. Carl.
How you doing, buddy?
Look, I used to look really pretty.
Still do, man.
I was trying to get a hold of you today.
I'll be back.
I've got to wire my heels.
I think I've probably left. Hey.
No, I left.
I believe that we're all dirty, and you
probably don't think so.
Well, I will.
I know you're busy, and I didn't want to spring
in on you.
But I'll try to always.
I don't want to spring in on you.
I don't know if it's a real quick answer.
But I'll try to always.
Very good.
He needs a lot of help.
No, no, no, no.
I know, I know.
Good to meet you, Sir.
We've got to get out of here.
One, two, three.
Hey, right here.
You got it?
Let's go.
Come on.
Let's go.
I want to get just one.
Okay, come on.
One, two.
One, two, three.
Okay, good.
It's been a while.
Yeah, I know my dad.
The name sounds familiar to me.
My uncle used to have a little juke joint down there.
Me, too.
Fine, I'm Zahira.
You're the mayor in my city.
Oh, okay.
And I have to give you a warning that.
Are you recording?
You're going to be here.
Come on, Congressman.
Oh, here I come.
Thank you.
All right, Ma'am.
Look up.
All right, Ma'am.
Mr. Mayor.
Hey, good meeting, Sir.
Yes, Sir.
It's nice to meet you, Sir.
Yes, Sir.
Thank you.
I want to talk to our board members.
Oh, yeah.
I remember. Yeah.
Curtis said so.
Thanks for your leadership.
Thank you.
How are you?
I'm good.
Nice to meet you.
This is the room. Yeah.
Is this the room? Yes.
This is the room.
You guys work in this big old space?
Yeah, this is a whole new room.
Man, this is awesome.
250,000 square feet. Whew.
And just got a 30-year contract. Yes.
That's pretty good.
Walk this way because I'm going to keep walking going.
So tell me about the program a little bit.
I mean, uh.
You get a pizza.
Walk this way.
Thank you, Sir.
Being a songwriter, you know, for a long time,
the only people who got royalties were the writers.
That's right.
This is our Muse cafe theater named after the
dean of black actors called Queen's Muse.
So we named this up here.
Can I just make a suggestion? Yeah.
You should get a lawyer to just offer one class
on protecting intellectual property right.
I mean, because just like screenplay, songs,
all this stuff, you know, because in plus
the technologies changes.
So like when they treat like serious FM
differently than they would a regular land
based radio.
And this is a very important thing to the
artists because I'm curious to know how can
the artists sustain him or herself?
Because how many artists like made beautiful
music that the whole world's dancing to die
broke and without.
But we, you know, that we have a, we got
programs that are absolutely unbelievable.
Again, there are like 16, 18 people on staff,
about 40 people that are contract individuals.
We worked out a deal with the city of Dallas,
the same like the symphony opera museum and
the rest of them do.
So we have all that 300 some thousand people
come to the venue in the course of a year.
So it's, it's a lot sounds awesome, man.
We have, I just don't want these kids to, to
learn about the downside of getting a record deal.
You know, after they get one, you know, after
they get one,
you know, after they get one,
you know, after they get one, you know, before
they get a
record deal.
I spent 16 years of my life in rooms just like
that, trying to make sure that people
got some decent justice.
That's what I used to do before I was in this
job, I was a trial lawyer, and represent people
from everything from murder on down,
discrimination, sued the police a lot, and so
this is a familiar
territory with me.
Oh, and look who's in there, that's a, uh,
Sergeant General Shruth, Malcolm X, you
know, Rosa Parks.
You know who this is, right? No.
Do you know who that is?
It looks like Rush Limbaugh.
That's Rush Limbaugh.
It's called Trial by Jury.
Um, uh, you know who that is.
That's Maya Angelou, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther
King, Johnnie Cochran, he's on trial, he's
on trial.
Thurgood Marshall sitting in Judgment.
Yeah, he's on trial.
That's awesome.
That's where you need to be.
Who's sitting in Macau?
That is crazy.
Come, let's go this way, yeah, let's see.
That's Maya Angelou, she's my assistant.
Hello, Sir, how are you?
Nice to meet you.
Thank you for all you do.
You're welcome.
You know, when you assist a man who's running
the thing, I know you're the one who really
runs the thing.
You said what?
I said, when you assist a man running the
thing, I know you're the real one running
the thing.
This is another room here.
These are all, all these administrative offices
where people work from.
Those are offices there.
Oh, you're saying changes?
Yeah, with this big panel.
This is our gift shop here, these are other
offices here.
Y'all got a real thing going on.
This is awesome.
Curtis, this is awesome.
Yeah, I went to high school with him.
All of these posters, the posters where I've
been here.
I didn't see a dedication.
All the, every one of these individuals have
been here and they're all supportive of the institution.
We're the only African American institution in
the country that's having this kind of venue.
The only one that's downtown and the only one
that has the kind of ongoing program we do.
This is truly remarkable.
Let's go through this right here.
And City Hall is right across the street.
Sure, sure.
And we're going to show you the big thing that
we've got.
It's huge too.
Oh yeah.
That's 25,000 square feet. 250,000.
Let's get it right.
This is the zero, Thomas.
This is the exhibit.
Elizabeth Catlin, you remember her, the artist?
She did a bust of me.
She and Margaret Walker were roommates in college.
Is that you?
That's me, yeah.
I need to sell it sometime for this thing.
At $100,000.
Well, wait a minute.
Stand next to it.
Here, come down here. Beautiful.
She was one of the 25 people that Oprah Winfrey
honored, very, very, very well-known sculptor.
So I lived with her.
I went to Mexico.
I visited her several times too. Wow.
Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, you remember him, right? Sure.
Eric Lincoln, he was a...
He wrote a book about the nation's fire?
That's right. Yeah.
So Eric Lincoln was the founding president of
the Black Academy.
All of these are things that we have in the
archive, and we just put an arrangement with
the University of North Texas.
All of our archives now is on the University of
North Texas campus. Digitized.
They give it a digitized.
They're giving a kick off a $5 million
endowment that the current museum is working
with us
on so that the world will have stuff.
We have letters from Halle Berry, Eartha Kitt.
We did a recording with Eartha Kitt.
So we have all that stuff there, all that stuff
and stuff that's been created and developed
over the years.
Look at that.
With the institution.
So it's on the University of North Texas campus
now to make sure that it gets preserved.
This is incredible, man.
This is really...
And we'll look at the big theater, and then
you're out.
This is incredible.
And 500 kids are in this program every year.
We have 7,000 people come see their kids.
We open all the way? Yeah.
We open all the way.
Let's go the other side.
We have to roll loud. Yeah.
So she, I directed her in the film, Ruby Dee.
I did the dance performance that she did at the
Apollo Theater.
I directed her.
I directed this one.
The music a little out here, but it's about to
show you that.
It's about to show you that.
That's how it is.
A lot of big names have been here.
So that's the set for herself.
That's the set for her, because the theater
scene almost looks like 1750s.
That's right.
Ruby Dee over there. Yeah.
That's my girl.
Jeff Lorber, illusion.
All of them.
Not me. Yeah.
Oh, I know all of them. Yes.
You got to come back.
Yeah, man.
We should come back when there's a great show
coming, too.
I'll invite you to stuff like that.
I've been to D.C. all the time.
Well, do you have my card?
Yeah, absolutely.
I got your card.
You got your email.
I'm going to drop you a line when I get back to D.C.
Please do so.
Let me know when you need a chance. Yeah.
I'll definitely call you.
Hey, man, so you're on the administrative side
of our world? Yes.
I'm going to call you.
Is this your home community? Yeah.
You too? Yes.
Eighth generation.
I'm seven of eight generations. Yes.
My family was here when...
I have a more meaningful dialogue. Yes.
So it's all a blessing either way. Yeah.
Get the shot right there.
One, two, three. Again.
One, two, three.
Come on, Jonathan.
This way. Yes.
One, two, three.
Is Carl still here?
Jump in there, Carl.
Come on.
Jump in.
Jump in there, Carl.