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Roland Martin is angry this morning after listening to Donald Trump’s news conference yesterday.

He called the President’s address, “a declaration of war.”

Roland is calling all Black people to stand up and fight. To, “say we are going to oppose any effort of going back to the days of Jim Crow.”

It’s time for black people as Roland explained to stand up against racism and be present. Roland expressed, “What the President has done is shameful.”

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Let’s get right to the issue at hand. Y’all have already been talking about it. We’ve been discussing it right here at TV One.

After yesterday’s despicable news conference by President Donald Trump. I was in my car trying to decide what is it that I wanted to listen to. To put into proper context my feelings about what we heard.

I thought back to the first Black woman elected from the South since reconstruction. Congresswomen Barbara Jordan from Houston. Here is what she had to say in 1973 at the Watergate Hearings.

     Earlier today we heard the beginning of the preamble of the Constitution to the       United States. We The People a very eloquent beginning.

    But when that documents was completed on the 17th of September in 1787 I was not       included in that ‘We The People.’

     I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexzander Hamilton       just left me out by mistake.

     But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision I have       finally been included in ‘We The People.’

     Today I am an inquisitor. A hyperbole would not be fictional and would not overstate       the solemnness that I feel right now.

     My faith in the Constitution is whole. It is complete. And I am not going to sit here       and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.   

Sybil just like Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, I will not be an idle spectator for white supremacist sitting in the White House.

I will not be an idle spectator to see Donald Trump walk in the footsteps of Republican Herbert Hoover who led the Lily White Movement when he was president from 1929 to 1933.

I will not sit idly by to see Donald Trump act like Democrat Woodrow Wilson. One of the most vile racists we’ve ever have serve in the office of the president.

The fact of the matter is that yesterday’s news conference was shameful, it was despicable. It was him giving the middle finger to black people to Jews, to Hispanics, to Asians, to women, to white people of conscience.

This is a president who has no shame. He is an immoral leader.

I know some people out there will say, ‘well he was elected.’ Yes but guess what?  Wilson was elected, Hoover was elected. And other racists who have served in that particular White House.

What this man has done by aligning himself with neo-Nazis and white supremacist is shameful and should not go unchecked.

But it’s not just a question of going unchecked. We must do more than simply tweet and comment on Facebook.

This is a challenge. This is a declaration of war.

I also talked about again what I was listening to. And I had to play this Tom, by Rev. Charles Jenkins.

Many of you might have heard this.

     When the enemy is swinging at you. You can’t go down or fall down. You have to swing back.

     You have to swing back.

     When the enemy is attacking you, you can’t give up. You can’t throw in the towel.

     But you got to get yourself together. And you have to come hard.

     Am I talking to any real people in the building?

    So when the enemy comes at you, you got to know that the weapons of our warfare      are not covered till we are pulling down the strongholds

    You can’t take it laying down, you got to fight back.

    So when the enemy comes at you no I’m not gonna break down, I’m not going to fall      down, I’m not going to go down.

    I’m gonna get my Holy Ghost swag and I’m going to go forward.

Tom for 398 years black people folk have been fighting in this country to ensure that it lives up to its ideals.

For 398 years we’ve made it perfectly clear that we are not going to sit idly by and allow ourselves to be embarrassed and run over and shamed by white supremacist.

This is the 190th Anniversary of the first black newspaper, the Freedom Journal, which was founded March 1827. In their lead editorial, they wrote, ‘we wish to plead our own cause. Too long has others spoken for us.’

This is a moment where we don’t need anybody else to speak for us. We can speak with the clarity and with precision as to exactly what is required of us. And what this requires, it requires Alpha’s and Kappa’s and Omega’s and Sigma’s Iota’s, AKA’s, Delta’s Zeta’s, Sigma Gamma Rho’s, the Links’. They require the Prince Hall Masons, Mi Phi Me.

It requires people of conscience to stand up whether you are boujee, whether you are grassroots. No matter where you are it requires black people and other people of conscience to say we are going to oppose any effort to go back to the days of Jim Crow. To go back to the days after Reconstruction when you had to redeem to move by Democrats. The Lily White Movement by white folks as well as in this country on the Republican side.

We have seen this before and every time it has happened we fought back.

And what that means is, it’s time for folks to stand up and mobilize and organize.

It means that when it comes to the ballot box, I don’t care who you are, I don’t want to hear anybody say, ‘my vote does not matter.’ Because when you see a white supremacist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that’s the only proof you need to show your vote does indeed matter.

What that means is that we need people in Virginia in Tennessee in Mississippi in Alabama in Texas in Georgia, in Florida, in Illinois, in California, in Wisconsin in Michigan in Pennsylvania to say enough is enough.

What it means for us to go to city council meetings, county commissioner meetings, state meetings, go to the governor’s mansion and say we are going to rain Holy hell down on any politician who stands with Donald Trump.

If you think we are playing you are wrong.

The previous generation, the baby boomers, they stood up. Our grandmothers and grandfathers stood up. Our mothers and fathers stood up. And it’s time for Gen X (Generation X) and Gen Y (Generation Y) and the little generation to stand up and say we are going to take this fight on and go after anybody who stands in our path.

I will not stand idly by and listen to Donald Trump anymore. I will not listen to a man who is an immoral leader.

I will not listen to anybody whether they are a black Republican who agrees with him. Who voted for him. Who continues to apologize for him.

And you will be named checked. You will be embarrassed. And you will not be invited to anything that involves black people.

It is time for us to call people out. It is time for us to realize that we cannot wait.

In 2018 we are going to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King being assassinated. We are going to focus on the 50th Anniversary Commissioner report of the race riots of 1967.

Do understand this is a moment where people are going to have to decide whose side they are on.

Are you on the side of righteousness? Or are you on the side of bigotry? Are you on the side of just people? Or are you on the side of white supremacist?

There is not going to be any, any effort to say I can stand on either one.

And I don’t care who you are if you’re Republican or Democrat you have been served notice.

If you stand with this man. If you support white nationalist policies, we are going to take you out at the ballot box and put people of conscience in.

Heather Heyer is going to be buried today. She is a 21i st century version of Viola Liuzzo. A white woman from Michigan who died trying to help Black folks to vote.

This is not a Black thing or Hispanic thing, or Asian thing it’s a conscience thing.

This is a battle for the soul of America. And like the Tuskegee Airman said, ‘We will fight till the last hour. To the last minute. To the last second. We will fight, fight fight!’

Number 45, Game on!

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