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This episode and the following transcript were originally published by Stand Together Foundation.
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Evan Feinberg
Hey, listeners. My name is Evan Feinberg, executive director of Stand Together Foundation, and one of your hosts for the Stand Together Podcast. Every time you hear my voice in the show, we’ll either be talking about the history of the social sector or paradigms that are shifting within it.
In this episode type, Paradigms, we’ll be unpacking some of the broken paradigms that exist in philanthropy and exploring some necessary shifts in that vision. I’ll be joined by some of my friends, esteemed colleagues, and brilliant thought leaders in the sector.
[Short Break]
Evan Feinberg
Hey there, this is Evan Feinberg. I’m the executive director of Stand Together Foundation, and I am thrilled to welcome you to another episode of the Stand Together Podcast. Following up on last week’s episode of a Brief History of Good, Becky and I started to talk about the idea of the empowerment paradigm and taking a really different approach to our work in communities, our work in nonprofits, our work in philanthropy… Really, how do you empower transformation in communities from the bottom up? And to have that conversation I’m thrilled to be able to introduce you to two individuals who I’ve learned more than I could ever imagine about this sector from.
So first, we’ve got the President of Urban Specialists, my good friend Antong Lucky, who also happens to be a board member of Stand Together Foundation. Antong has an incredible personal story and is doing some of the most important work in America, both in Dallas, but it’s having an impact all over the country.
And I’m also thrilled to introduce you to Dr. Buster Soaries. Buster Soaries is the chairman of the Dfree Organization. He is also the now retired pastor—after a very illustrious and long career—at First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, New Jersey, and is just one of the wisest and most accomplished social change leaders that I’ve ever met.
So Antong and Buster, welcome to the podcast.
Antong Lucky
Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Dr. Buster Soaries
I’m thrilled to be here
Evan Feinberg
All right. Well, Antong, let’s start with you before we get into Urban Specialists and before we get into some of the work that you’re leading that’s having a national impact, tell us your personal story. How did you get involved in empowering people in communities in the first place?
Antong Lucky
Man, it’s a long story, but I would try to minimize that for the sake of this podcast. But I got into this, I grew up South Dallas, single parent, father in prison, a Honor Roll student, talented and gifted student. But I succumbed to the influences of the community, right? The environment. And so long story short, I started the first Blood gang in Dallas, which led me in front of a judge who then said I was a menace to society and sent me to prison.
And so in prison, going into prison, I met a guy, Willie Ray Fleming, who had been there 15 years, who saw something in me. And his words that changed my life when I met him were, “Young man, if you had the ability to lead these dudes to do wrong, you have that same ability to lead them to do right. You’re a leader.”
And so when he said that to me, that began this long journey of me first understanding who I was, and then getting the knowledge to then give that to others. And so as I unlocked potential in me, it’s just infectious to unlock potential in others who were like me.
And so fast forward, I was released from prison. I met this guy named Omar Jahwar, who then just opened up a whole string of possibilities for me because he was the first, well, second person that I believe believed in me, which was empowering for me, for someone of my background who had my track record for somebody to say, “You got value.” It opened up my world for me.
So thus, 22 years later, been in this space of empowering others, helping others unlock they potential. So that’s how I’m here, Evan.
Evan Feinberg
Wow. We could spend the whole episode just unpacking your incredible personal journey, but just hitting a few of the key elements there. So you said you started the Blood Gang in Dallas-
Antong Lucky
Correct.
Evan Feinberg
When you were 14 years old?
Antong Lucky
Correct.
Evan Feinberg
And then it became one of the largest gangs in Dallas, right?
Antong Lucky
Correct.
Evan Feinberg
So in your story, as you mentioned, when you were then in prison, your leadership capabilities were recognized, but then you were able to see how those leadership abilities could be used to lead others toward positive outcomes?
Antong Lucky
Right. And that’s exactly how it happened. When I met Willie, I didn’t realize that I had the influence. He told me, and it made me take a step back and I realized how people were responding to me and his words were, “Let’s lead them to do positive, let’s lead them to do right, et cetera, et cetera.” And that opened me up for some possibilities that I didn’t know existed.
Evan Feinberg
All right. So we’re going to come back to talk about then how you’re using those leadership abilities now. But, Buster, maybe also share some of your story. You’ve been doing this work in incredible ways for a number of years now. Can you tell us how you came to be leading efforts like Dfree, driving empowerment in the community that you’re in, in New Jersey?
Dr. Buster Soaries
Sure. Well, thank you, Evan. I was born in Brooklyn, but I escaped at an early age to New Jersey. And my mom and dad were educators and just basic workers. My dad was a part-time minister, and I grew up in Northern New Jersey in a relatively comfortable environment.
When I was 16 years old, Martin Luther King was killed, and the day he was killed, I saw my grandmother sitting at her dining room table in tears. And I couldn’t figure that out because she was not an activist. She was not a Baptist. She was not an educated woman. She was a domestic worker. And when I asked her why she was sitting in her dining room in tears, she said, “They shot Dr. King today.”
Now, up until that moment, I basically was a basketball player and a girl chaser. I had no focus on Civil Rights. I had no focus on the movement, but I did have a focus on my grandmother. She was really my best friend. And I said to myself that day, “Any man that can have an impact on my grandmother like that, I need to know more about him. And further, I want my life to be as impactful on someone’s life as Dr. King’s life was on my grandmother.”
So I spent the next five years really studying the Civil Rights Movement, reading everything I could about leaders, and I came to the conclusion that Jesse Jackson was the successor to Dr. King, in terms of Civil Rights leadership. So I convinced Jesse Jackson to hire me. I was 23 years old. He hired me and assigned me to the task of organizing chapters of his new Civil Rights organization around the country.
I reported to the national coordinator who a year in, moved on to a different position, and then Reverend Jackson made me the national coordinator. And so I was running the whole operation at 24 years old. And after a couple of years of that, I realized that we were basically attempting to keep alive the flames and the passion and fervor of the Civil Rights Movement, which was a protest movement. And I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life identifying problems.
I believe in protests when necessary. Protests are designed to identify a problem that otherwise would be ignored, but I wanted to spend the rest of my life solving problems, and not simply protesting problems. And so I went on a personal journey, really, for about 13 years, trying to figure out what do I do with my new commitment, but my old training. And I ended up at First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, a small church and a poor neighborhood.
And I decided that I would demonstrate both a commitment and a capacity to solve problems: high crime, low employment, poor education, public housing complexes on both sides of the church that at war with each other, kids without hope. And after 30 years, I could take you back to the neighborhood and see how we were able to leverage the resources of the indigenous people in the neighborhood, coupled with the capacity of the church, to bring about neighborhood revitalization without any dislocation, with no gentrification and beautification.
Evan Feinberg
Wow. After hearing the stories of these two individuals, you can see why they’ve become such important mentors to me in this work, both our board members of my organization at Stand Together Foundation, because they’re bringing this immense experience and important insight into the work that we’re doing.
So I’d love to just continue to unpack the insights behind your work. Just really so many interesting ways that we can take your stories today. Antong, let’s start with you.
Your personal experience has now become this incredible asset that’s made you effective in your role. Tell us a little bit about Urban Specialists, what you’re working on, and what makes it so special and unique?
Antong Lucky
I think what makes Urban Specialists special is the fact that Bishop Omar, rest his soul, saw something in people. He saw the answers and solutions in people that would otherwise been written off or marginalized or not considered for the answer.
So when I met Omar coming out of prison, I realized that I was what he needed, and he was what I needed. He was the salesperson, I was the product. And it was based on this idea that Black men ages 18 to 34 had been written off from society. And Omar always believed that those individuals were the solutions to what was going on in the community. He always talked about the fact that anytime you’re trying to find a cure to a disease, you extract some of the virus for the antibody, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s how he described what we were doing.
He was in essence saying, “In order to build communities, you have to incorporate and use men and women who have been seen as the problem as the solution.” So that was the beginning of Urban Specialists taking former gang members, brothers who have been, sisters who have been to prison, and saying, “You have an advantage in this culture, you have a responsibility to these young people, because they follow you. You have proximity. You know the culture, you carry the cadence. And so you have a responsibility.”
And so Omar was brave enough to say to a school district, “Allow these men in your school.” And the schools were skeptical, but after a couple of years, the numbers came out in the violence that these schools were seeing, as it relates to gang violence, which I was a part of in the earlier years, you saw violence come down—because you had individuals that these youngsters respected in these schools, and it just expanded.
So our whole deal with Urban Specialists was about identifying local leadership. We call them OGs, changemakers, in communities who are indigenous to those communities and making them be the solution because they are the solution. And so that work has thus expanded across Dallas and the model is across the country of using individuals who Omar said, “When they character change, they characteristically have a market advantage,” using those individuals.
And so Urban Specialists exists to do just that, to find local leadership, empower them to be the answer to the problems that plague our communities.
Evan Feinberg
I think this is so insightful, Antong. Just the idea that we were talking, Becky and I, about the control versus empowerment approaches to communities. And I see so many efforts that want to study violent communities, for example, communities that are experiencing significant levels of poverty.
And so they study the problem, they come up with all of the interventions that they need to drive, and they swoop in with those interventions. And all of the research says that none of them work. And you all are handling it completely differently.
Antong Lucky
Right. Our interventions come from the people, because I think oftentimes people who study the problem, who write about the problem, they don’t actually go to the people, the actual people in neighborhoods, who have answers themselves. So anytime you try to parachute an answer in without including the people that you are studying, the people that it affects the most, it’s a combination for a bad result. It happens all over the country.
People who do that, who bring in ideas that don’t include the… Because it’s this misnomer. You think that people in communities, they’re not smart or that they don’t know the answer to what they dealing with, and they do. They just never been asked. So our way of looking at it, we always include in creating solutions the people who it affect the most.
Dr. Buster Soaries
You know what I’ve learned about that point? Because it’s absolutely correct. When the people on the ground, in the community, are asked, what they’re asked is about the what, but not the how.
Antong Lucky
Exactly.
Dr. Buster Soaries
So they’ll do what’s called needs assessments. We did that and people say, “We need jobs, we need youth programs.” Everybody knows what they need, and then they’ll go off and go to the PhDs and the scholars to come up with the how. But the people not only have the what, but they have the how. And that how that you describe, Antong, is an example of letting the people describe the what and the how.
Antong Lucky
Right. I agree.
Evan Feinberg
Well, Buster, let’s go there next. So there’s a prevailing approach in community-based philanthropy, and it’s generally known as collective impact. And the idea is, well, if we can circle a neighborhood and if we can get all the major actors to collaborate together and more efficiently and effectively deliver services based on shared research, and then shared backbone organizations, shared accounting systems, shared grant making strategies—the idea is if we can just circle that area and drive value that we can solve a community’s problems.
And they get criticized every once in a while for not having the constituent voice. And so they put a couple of representatives from the community on the advisory board, and basically the research says, “None of these collective impact efforts have really led to community transformation.” Maybe some have done some nice things, but there’s not a lot of evidence they’re driving significant change.
But the community that you’re in, in Somerset, New Jersey, looks nothing like it looked like prior, as in it’s thriving in all kinds of incredible ways because of your leadership. Tell us what you did differently that others could learn from?
Dr. Buster Soaries
Well, what we did in the first instance was focus on shared vision and shared values. We developed a process where people could develop a shared vision. Two public housing communities surrounded our church, one behind the church in one county, one in front of the church in a different county. And they were at war. They had been at war for generations.
And what we had to do was to help them identify what assets would be of value to both, what future would be of benefit to both sides of the street. Now, when I say, “We,” understand, I’ve got to back up a half step. The we rarely included me. I was new to the neighborhood. I went to an Ivy League seminary. I was raised in a different kind of neighborhood, which means that although I had the commitment and I had access to some of the resources, I was not the neighborhood.
And so I found the Antongs and the Omars of that neighborhood. Dickie, a former heroin addict who had now recovered from drugs, Calvin, whose two front teeth were missing from fighting and all seven of his siblings, likewise. He lived in the public housing across the street. Tutsi, who had two sons, and they were getting in trouble all of the time. And we worked with her sons. Priscilla, who really controlled the women in the public housing. Lulu, who was the moral authority of the whole region. And it was Dickie and Calvin and Lulu and Tutsi, it was those folks who had grown up in the neighborhood, some of whom had overcome barriers themselves. Some of them were still wrestling with issues, and they were the how. They were the ones that called the meetings. They were the ones that facilitated the conversations, and they were the ones who spoke to the policy makers and said, “This is the future of our neighborhood.”
Evan Feinberg
Buster, people might hear this and they hear those names, and they might in their mind, be thinking, “Well, that’s going to be small ball efforts. Those individuals engaging, that’s really nice, but they couldn’t possibly transform an entire community. We need a big economic development plan and a big government program and whatnot to transform Somerset.”
Paint us a picture. What does the community, what did it look like then and what does it look like now?
Dr. Buster Soaries
Well, the community was the most dangerous neighborhood in Central New Jersey. One mile south, mind you, of the world headquarters of Johnson and Johnson. And so we lived in a region of relative prosperity, but we lived in a pocket of poverty and ignorance and crime.
That neighborhood today looks like the region. It’s safe, there’s new housing, there’s affordable housing, there are new parks, there’s a new supermarket. There are two new schools. And this neighborhood attracted almost a half a billion dollars of public and private money invested in all of those things led by Lulu, Calvin, Dickie, and the people from the neighborhood. Because when the governor came to visit the neighborhood to assess what the state could do, they met with Lulu and Calvin and Dickie.
When Paul Ryan was speaker of the house and he came to the neighborhood, we had a luncheon for him. He sat right next to Lulu. The point is, these were the architects and the leaders and the spirit of neighborhood revitalization. And as long as they were satisfied with the plans, the strategies, the construction and the land use, then we knew the neighborhood would be in good hands.
And that’s my pride and joy. The pride is that when I say we, the we is led by the them who were there before I got there, and they’re there now that I’m gone.
Antong Lucky
And just because I remember meeting Lulu.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Right.
Antong Lucky
That’s why I’m laughing when I hear you say that. But I think more importantly too, is what Doc is saying, is that involving them gives those individuals in that community agency, it gives them responsibility because they’re part of the process and the plan. So guess what? They going to make sure it’s straight. They going to make sure it’s taken care of.
See, oftentime when people are not involved, that’s why they can destroy property and not have any love for that community, when they feel like it’s not theirs. But in that example Doc just described, you can do nothing but protect, love, and have that sense of ownership because you got agency and you have a part in saying what happens in your community. And that’s what we talking about.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Yeah. It’s legitimate empowerment.
Antong Lucky
Yes.
Dr. Buster Soaries
I remember when we had the first shooting, I had just gotten there six months prior and a white cop shot a Black kid. The Black kid was unarmed, and the cop was very remorseful. He was a christian guy, and he was just genuinely sorry that it happened.
However, the dynamics was such that it’s a white cop and a Black kid. And so being the new pastor of the largest church in town, I call a press conference and the media comes and I turned the mic over to a 16 year old kid who was in the neighborhood, lives in public housing, and understands, one, the authenticity of the policeman’s sorrow. Two, the need to move beyond that incident, albeit tragic, but it was something that happened and the need to work with the police and meet with the mayor and become proactive.
And that young man was so articulate after the press conference, I said, “Why aren’t you in school?” And we ended up sending him to college and he graduated from college. And it’s an empowerment paradigm that we’re talking about. We’re talking about really minimizing the role of what is typically called charismatic leaders, or even institutional heads, and putting in their place authentic, legitimate community leaders, representatives, advocates, and residents, and then building around them the resources that they need to do their how in light of what they need.
Evan Feinberg
All right. We’re going to take a quick break, and then we will get back to this incredible conversation.
[Short Break]
Evan Feinberg
So Buster, you bring up a really important topic for our consideration here today, and that’s the relationship between law enforcement and the community. And this is such a significant problem. You can see why folks want to do whatever they can to really drive proactive solutions, but we’re tearing each other apart and we’re not making much progress on this as a country. And so you’ve brought up this empowerment approach as maybe a better way of really bringing together our communities and overcoming some of the injustices, even, related to law enforcement in our country. So can you say just a little bit more about where the prevailing approach is to addressing these injustices, where they’re going wrong, and how we might think of this dynamic through more of an empowerment lens?
Dr. Buster Soaries
Sure. I think if we consider law enforcement so sacrosanct that they are not subject to any scrutiny, we’re missing an historic reality that shows up in the data today, where only 10% of Black people have confidence in the police. So it’s a legitimate problem. So for those who say, look, we need the police and the police can do no wrong, I think we are missing something that’s critical for the future of the country. On the other hand, for those who say defund the police or disband the police, I think it’s naive, it’s impractical, and it does not represent the majority thought in the neighborhoods that need police and are asking for more police.
So I think if you look at it from those two extremes, you realize that there’s got to be another approach, an approach that assumes that we need the police, that communities, as we’ve said, have solutions and problem solvers on the inside. So the question becomes, how do we forge positive, constructive relationships between police and communities that can demonstrate what the future should be? If you only look at the past, you will either get angry or so frustrated that you give up. But what we did, and when I met Omar, it was at a meeting of people around the country who didn’t know each other, but who were doing similar work. When I did the work I did in Somerset, I didn’t know what Urban Specialists represented in Dallas, but we were operating on the same principles.
And so when organizations stand together, bring groups together that are operating on the same principles that don’t know each other, it provides best practice sharing, it provides inspiration and encouragement, and it provides a different level of empowerment. And so what I believe we are doing well, and we have to do more, is to identify those communities where law enforcement and community organizations are working towards the solutions for that specific problem in that specific community.
Evan Feinberg
So we’ve now referenced Bishop Omar Jahwar a number of times, and I just want to take a moment to talk about this incredible human being. Bishop Omar, in many ways, is an individual that brought the three of us together. Bishop Omar passed away a little over a year ago after a long battle with COVID, and Omar just was this incredible inspiration to all of us. He was the founder of Urban Specialists, the organization that Antong now leads, and a dear friend. Omar saw this philosophy, this way of addressing problems in communities, and just dedicated his entire life to transforming lives and communities and taught us so much about this work. So Antong, I’d love for you to say a word about Bishop Omar and what he meant to you and to this work.
Antong Lucky
Man, that’s heavy. But Omar, Bishop Omar, was the first person who espoused the believe in people principles to me, who made it be real, the way he embraced me, the way he walked with me every day. You know, Omar walked me off the ledge many times, man. That brother just had a way of getting into your system, I mean, to where he invaded your thoughts. And he had a quick wit. He loved people. One of the smartest, intuitive person that I’ve ever met in my life. I owe a lot. I owe my life to him, because it was him that kept me going.
But I got to tell you a funny story of Omar, just to illustrate how quick his wit was. We was in Washington, at the White House, and Omar was talking about this concept, and he was young then. He was like 27, 28, and he was young, and he was talking about this concept of us ex-felons working in schools, et cetera, et cetera. He was delivering it, right? And I remember, man, it was a older white lady, she had white hair, pearls on, and she cut him off, and she said, “Sir, are you telling me that you’re implying that you’re going to have felons working with kids?”
And I remember sitting there like, man, how are you going to respond to this, right? Because it got serious. And Omar, without even thinking, said, “Ma’am, with all due respect, it probably was felons who made the children,” and the whole place burst out laughing, man.
And I looked at Omar, and I said, “I don’t know where he gets this stuff from.” But man, he was just, Omar was a huge personality, man. Any room that we… He always late. We could never fix his lateness. We could never fix that.
Dr. Buster Soaries
I’m glad you said it.
Antong Lucky
Oh yeah, I tried for years
Dr. Buster Soaries
When I said it, I got in trouble, so I’m glad you said it.
Antong Lucky
We could never fix that. But he was the only person that could be late, but when he showed up, he showed up.
Dr. Buster Soaries
That’s right.
Antong Lucky
I mean, he closed it out. He brought everything, because he just believed in connecting people and the goodness and the potential of people. If I learned anything from Omar, I learned to be patient with people and look for the goodness in people, because we all have it within all this stuff. And so that’s what I learned, man. That was my brother.
Evan Feinberg
So Antong, I’d love for you to share more about some of the work that you and Omar did together around July 7th in Dallas, Texas. There was violence happening all over the country, protests happening all over the country as a result of a number of individuals that were the victims of police injustices. There was a lot of protests going on around the country. Tempers were flaring, tensions were high, the potential for significant… And then we get tragedy in Dallas. Take us back to what happened in Dallas, and what you and Omar were able to do by taking this empowerment approach to the problem.
Antong Lucky
Yes, Evan, I remember that day vividly. It was probably one of the darkest days in Dallas history, where you were speaking of five officers were murdered tragically, another four was injured, total of nine. And Chief Brown was our police chief then. And I remember Omar, after that situation happened and it just stunned us, Omar got a call from Chief Brown. And I was with Omar when he received that call, and Chief was saying, “Man, help me. Help me help our city, right? I know you have people out there. Get your people, and let’s get this together. Let’s figure it out.”
And so two days later, Omar called the meeting, and he had me and some others going out getting the people who put on the protests. It was an anti-brutality protest. I think Alton Sterling and Philando Castile had just been recently killed, and it was in response to that. And so two days later, July the 9th, Omar called us and we go get the protestors. We had police, we had community, and we had about 150 people in the library. We didn’t allow media to come in, because it was so sensitive. And when I tell you, in our years of doing this, we cut our teeth on negotiating gang peace treaties and et cetera, et cetera, right? People who were shooting at each other, we bringing them in the room with they weapons, and we negotiating peace with they weapons. So you can imagine that.
But this particular day, July 9th, 2016, we had 150 people in the room, officers and activists. And when I tell you, Evan, it was one of the toughest moments I’ve ever been in. The tension was so thick you can cut it with a knife, and it was screaming and it was blaming and it was all of that, right? And I remember thinking to myself, how is this going to end? How is this going to end? This is a tough situation, because it was activists blaming the police. It was police saying… It was just… Man, but we forged through that. Omar led us through that. And at the end of it, officers and activists were crying and hugging, praying, saying that we were going to make sure our city rise above this.
And that was one of those moments, defining moments to me that made me say wow, because what Omar did, he empowered every individual in that room to have a responsibility for how our city go forward, right? And I really believe that that was the reason Dallas didn’t go into riot, because it was the right people from the right communities, the right officers who could take this message back to their respective camps. And I think that then became the model, because we had meetings with law enforcement and community for nine months straight after that, where we were bringing them together and allowing them to get these issues out, but finding a solution going forward.
And so I think that situation is what thrust Omar and I on the national scene, and we were just doing the work that we naturally do, looking for the right, looking for the solution, et cetera, et cetera. But it caught the eyes of a lot of people. I think that’s how we met. That’s how we ended up in the same place together, because Paul Ryan got a whiff of it, of what had happened, and we were just doing the work. Omar was just doing the work. But it was all around this idea that we had a shared responsibility to our communities, whether it was law enforcement or community.
Dr. Buster Soaries
But Evan, understand the application of the principle of bottom-up leadership. Urban Specialists has become a national resource. Omar and Antong became national leaders with national profiles, but it was due to their local role and their local authenticity. When Omar was a young pastor, right after I met him, I met Omar, I guess 15 years ago at a retreat, one of the young men very close to him got killed. And this death was, I forget who it was, Antong, but this death was a major, major hit to their community, to their network, to their family. And I spent two hours on the phone helping Omar prepare for the funeral.
You see, if a national leader had come in to that July 2016 event, two things would’ve happened. Number one, it would’ve been a press event. And number two, they’d have left town the next day. But when you have local, indigenous leadership and a young man, we call him Bishop because he was a pastor first, the goal is not a national profile. The outcome may be a national profile, but the goal is the healing and the solving of local problems, which if they are profound enough, as they’ve been in Dallas, it becomes a national story. And that’s the difference.
Antong Lucky
Right.
Evan Feinberg
Well, Chief David Brown, the police chief in Dallas at the time, and now the police chief in the city of Chicago, shared with me personally that, what you described, Antong, that but for the work of yourself and Bishop Omar and the local leadership of those with influence on the ground in the community, that Dallas was a powder keg and that it could have been way worse. I mean, just imagine the situation. Five police officers killed, four more injured, and a community that continued to be extremely upset with police brutality and injustice both across the country and within Dallas. The chances that situation could have gotten out of hand, it’s a minor miracle that they didn’t get out of hand. And so the fact that you all were able to do that is really exemplary and worth understanding today. How do we avoid further conflict through that kind of empowerment work?
Dr. Buster Soaries
But for platforms like these, no one would know about it, because you don’t make news for what doesn’t happen. You make news for what does happen. And around the country, we’ve seen violence prevented, violence disrupted, we’ve seen healing happen, and it’s not newsworthy. Which means that if we don’t continue to do what you’re leading through the Stand Together Foundation and a few other efforts around the country, then people will lose hope, because all they’ll see is failure.
Evan Feinberg
Right.
Antong Lucky
And I want to also interject that when those national incidents and tragedies happen, our emotions get pricked too, you know? I want to say that. You get emotional when it happens, especially as how the media and everybody and all of the talking pundits go to talking about it. But I think for us, you have to always stand on truth. You always have to stand on integrity, and you have to, beyond the emotions, tell the story correctly, because oftentimes you can have incidents where a situation happened. Let’s just say, I’m going to give you a situation, where a young man gets pulled over and he point a gun at the police officer, and then he gets killed. And our community have the ability to inflate that to the same level as someone unarmed in a different situation. And so our role as leaders is to be able to tell that story correctly, not allow the emotions to inflate and therefore make cloudy the real issue.
I think police brutality is something that can be addressed. At the same time safety can be addressed, at the same time we have good officers can be addressed, that we got good communities that can be addressed, those conversations can happen linearly. Those conversations can happen. And I think oftentimes, when we had these conversations in our communities, whether it’s law enforcement or community, we inflate the two, and it makes it hard to really separate and stand on truth and integrity and accountability for our communities.
Evan Feinberg
So you both are making that happen through a national movement that’s building on this work. We’re going to take a short break, and then we are going to talk about how you all are taking these key insights and turning it into a national movement that can really change the trajectory of our country. Back in a bit.
[Short Break]
Evan Feinberg
So Antong, you brought up what the skeptic might say about Urban Specialist’s work, about this empowerment paradigm in communities. You talked about trusting those in the community to be assets for change, but someone might say, I just don’t think we can trust individuals who have been incarcerated, former gang leaders, often individuals that are currently in gangs. The skeptic might say that is not a strategy that I can get on board with to transform communities. What would you say to the skeptic that says, no, we got to trust these evidence-based academic interventions into these communities? We couldn’t possibly trust those with criminal records to be the solution to the problem.
Antong Lucky
Man, I would say to the skeptic, you’ll never get solutions and progress with that type of thinking. We have to believe in redemption and transformation. I mean, everything that we do, redemption and transformation is very important. We all have something that we don’t care to admit that we can be redeemed from. Some of us got caught, some of us didn’t. So to begin with the idea that I can’t trust an individual because of a past mistake that they made in the past, or a character flaw they made when they was 15 years old that they have since then corrected, it’s just the wrong type of thinking when we trying to move this country forward.
When you look at all of the conversations that are happening on a national level, whether it’s conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, it sounds so much like gang banging, you know? Your side better than the next side. We never get a solution if we don’t ever come to the table and say, okay, we have to look past some of the things where we got it wrong at, and how do we get it right? So if I’m the person that’s saying I can’t deal with somebody who been to prison, or somebody who had a drug addiction, or somebody who whatever, then you would never get to solutions, because what makes you in a position that you can say that’s valid or that’s not valid? What makes you above reproach? And we all know, we all have been through some things.
So I just think that’s the wrong type of thinking, and we have to push past those individuals who think like that. I think you can find the answer to problems anywhere. Wherever truth at, you have to find, search it, and be a part of it, and that’s just how you move the needle forward. You have to believe in redemption and transformation in order to move this country forward.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Well, and Evan, we understand that in other areas of life. When you get a driver’s license, you don’t just read a book about driving. You read the book, you take the test, and then you get a learner’s permit, and you’re working and driving and learning under the supervision of a driver. Otherwise, you could just read a book and take a test and get your license. When you become a carpenter, you don’t just read a book about carpentry. You work as an apprentice under a carpenter.
The fact is, and I had this with foster care in New Jersey, the fact is, expertise often lies in experience more than it does in research. When we started our foster care ministry at First Baptist, we had a contract with the state, and the state requirement was that we hire a social worker to run the program. And I said, well, if the social worker has never fostered a child, is that social worker automatically more qualified than a woman who we did hire who’s had 23 foster children?
Antong Lucky
Preach.
Dr. Buster Soaries
So I think the whole notion of expertise has got to be recalibrated when it comes to social challenges like the ones that we deal with.
Evan Feinberg
I think that’s just such an important thought for our listeners to spend time on. I mean, after meeting you, Antong, it’s just a no-brainer to me and to anyone else who meets you that you’ve got next-level leadership skills and talent, and that you should be trusted to lead not only your nonprofit, but I’d see you leading a significant for-profit business or a public official or anything with your leadership skills and talents, and the idea that we would overlook those talents because of your past is nonsense to me. But more importantly, if you combine those leadership skills with now your personal knowledge and experience of how to apply those leadership skills to help others in communities, it’s just obvious to me now that there’s nobody better.
Antong Lucky
Right. And Evan, you’re absolutely correct. I think if we go back, we got to go back to this, right? I think it’s a false notion that those individuals and communities cannot be the answer, right? I think when you look at some of our communities that have been drained of resources, targeted, and redlined, we cannot acknowledge that some of that created some of these problems, right?
And that’s no excuse. We definitely advocate personal accountability, but the full picture is some of our neighborhoods were redlined. Some of our neighbors were drained of resources, et cetera, et cetera. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s some… I was an honor roll student. I was a talented and gifted student. It doesn’t kill the talent that exists in communities.
So I think sometimes when we look, we see communities, and it’s something that conjures up in our mind in terms of if it’s looking for solutions or if it’s these geniuses in this community. It’s something that has been oriented. A program in our mind to look at these communities that we’re trying to help through negative lenses as opposed to looking at these communities through the treasures and the resources that exist within these communities.
And I think what we’re talking about right here is how do we find those treasures and those resources, and we highlight and prop those individuals and those resources up. But it takes a different type of thinking to even be, it takes a different type of person for Omar Jahwar to see a brother coming fresh out of prison who ran the Bloods for real—not faking, not shaking, not propped up—but who did that for real. To say, “Man, you have something to contribute that you can be an asset.” It takes a different type of person who can see like that. And oftentimes, it’s not a researcher, and no, you do need research, you do need academics and et cetera, et cetera. But it takes a different type of person to see the value in another person.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Bottom-ups does not suggest that systems, whether they’re institutional structures or public policies, that they don’t matter. They do matter. But systems should be reformed in light of the experience of the people who solve the problem.
Antong Lucky
Right.
Evan Feinberg
Love that.
Antong Lucky
And that’s why it is so important and why I’m a part of Stand Together because Stand Together understands that government may not get it right, and oftentimes they don’t get it right because it’s bureaucracy, it’s all of that. You have to have organizations and individuals who look for results and who support results based around principles of progress. You got to have that. And that’s what makes the work that I do, that Doc and others around this country do, so significant and important to communities because you got to have partners who believe and understand that.
Evan Feinberg
And Antong your answer, your first answer insinuated too that seeing the problem as only the systems of injustice might end up becoming disempowering to the community, as in that there’s no agency for individuals in the community to overcome the barriers that they’re facing. So it’s not to minimize the injustices, but tell me if I’ve understood you correctly, that if we focus only on those injustices and not on what people can and are doing to overcome those injustices, then we actually remove agency and empowerment.
Antong Lucky
It’s a disincentive. When I go into schools talking to kids, my message is resilience. My message is regardless if the neighborhood is bad, regardless if your parents are bad, regardless of the school, the environment, et cetera, et cetera. It’s the measure that Bishop gave us a long time ago. No matter what happens to you, you’re responsible for what to do for yourself. And so I don’t spend time talking about the systems, a white man or this to that, because for a kid if somebody is telling me that, it just might make me say, “Why even try? If all of that’s stacked against me, why even try?”
So that’s not a message that I give my community. I give my community that these obstacles that are in front of you, are meant to give you character, and give you courage and give you the agency that you have within you to handle those. So that’s my message. So that’s why for me, I don’t spend a lot of time focusing on debt. I focus on what we can do and what we can be held accountable for in terms of moving forward ourselves. And I think that’s a better message, even in this climate. A message that says you have within you to reach whatever goals you set for yourself and that all of the obstacles that come at you, are meant to make you better. That’s my message.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Frederick Douglass didn’t wait for slavery to end to escape slavery. Douglass didn’t wait for the Emancipation Proclamation to teach himself how to read. Frederick Douglas overcame slavery because he made up his mind that he was going to be free. And thus his experience gave him the platform to describe slavery from experience, challenge the institution and ultimately help change the system. And so personal responsibility, personal decision-making, and personal change initiate that which results in redemption and systemic transformation.
Antong Lucky
I remember in prison. When I was in prison, it was a lot of brothers in prison who were mad at the officers. I’ll never forget that. These brothers, it was like this is us against them, the officers. And I used to tell brothers, if you spent all day battling with that officer that didn’t place you in here, you minimize all the opportunities you have to work on what got you in here. So if you don’t work on what got you in here, you’re going to come back here. And that’s the same principle. I mean, it’s the same thing. You can spend all day arguing about this, or you can say, “Man, what agency do I have to make my life better or to be accountable for the choices I’ve made?” And that’s the route that I took personally.
Evan Feinberg
Well, I know how rare this perspective is because, at least in the public discourse, we’re made to believe that there are only two choices in this work. When we’re thinking about how to heal communities that have been historically marginalized and are facing significant barriers, you would think that there are only two choices. One is to believe that the system is stacked against individuals and entire communities and that we can make no progress until we dismantle the structures in society. And usually, there’s no end to that. It’s to tear down the idea of the way that America is structured, our Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and our structures of government.
So, on the one hand, we’ve said we can make no progress, but for dismantling all that, on the other hand, you get folks who deny that those injustices even exist and deny that we should be even having the conversation about historically marginalized communities. And so, here you’ve put forward a different paradigm altogether that says that we, through the empowerment of individuals and communities, will see system changes that make the most sense to empower people. I think that’s pretty… Do I have it right? I guess this is the first question.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Well, I think history bears it out. When you look at historic changes that have been positive for the general good, it always starts with individuals. It starts with a transformative value system. Systems are simply the amplification of people. Systems don’t exist, they exist separate from people. People create systems, and people change systems. My problem is I read Victor Frankel as a young man, Victor Frankel, in a concentration camp, a German concentration camp where Jews were just treated like nothing. Victor Frankel said “I am in a concentration camp, but the concentration camp is not in me.” And it was transformative to see someone in a concentration camp say that I can rise above my circumstances. And once I read that, I couldn’t unlearn it. It just changed my life.
Antong Lucky
Doc, Victor Frankel was one of my favorite authors, and I’ve read him in prison. That’s how I got through prison. Finding your why. Find your why to live.
Evan Feinberg
Yeah. Frankel said that a man who knows his why can handle almost anything.
Antong Lucky
That’s right.
Evan Feinberg
Wow. That, that’s really profound and inspiring stuff guys, and really thought-provoking for me and for our listeners.
[Short Break]
Evan Feinberg
Welcome back. We are continuing our incredible conversation with two amazing human beings. Anton Lucky, the President of Urban Specialists, and Dr. Buster Soaries, the chairman of the Dfree Foundation. Both are board members of my organization Stand Together Foundation. Importantly for this conversation, Antong and Buster serve as the co-chairs of Heal America. And that movement was really launched and founded by Bishop Omar Jahwar, who we talked about earlier. And it really came out of the work and the situation that we were talking about earlier, around July 7th, 2017, in the city of Dallas. So Antong, can you tell us a little bit more about Heal America and why is this movement so important?
Antong Lucky
Yes, yes. I remember back when Omar had this idea, Heal America. I think it’s important to note that he walked into the office one day and just said, “God told me to heal America.” And I remember everybody was looking baffled. What is he talking about? And this was before Breonna Taylor. It was before George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and all that. But he just said, “God told me to heal America.”
And interesting enough, I think it’s important to note Evan, I remember when Bishop, we were sitting in his Ford F-150 and he was talking to you about Heal America and asking Stand Together to bring their full capabilities to this movement of racial healing and addressing racial injustice. And I sat in the truck and listened as you were having that conversation. I think a lot of people don’t know that and how excited you were.
And you both took it to Brian Hooks. I remember that. I can bear witness to that. But I think his whole idea was that we had a part to play in this national conversation of bridging the fights that existed in our communities by implementing some principles, love, justice, courage, and redemption into the conversation. So I remember that. I remember just going around the country, finding individuals in communities who were on opposite sides of issues and saying, “How do we bring them together? How do we apply our capability and negotiate peace with gang members in this arena?” So it grew from that. I mean, it grew from that.
I remember the conversation he had with you, Doc, about this. You all got to notice. I used to be shotgun with Omar everywhere. And he would have you all on speakerphone, just FYI. So I had the privilege of riding shotgun as this movement was taking shape and hearing the thoughts from you guys as we architect this movement. And it’s been a blessing. I mean, just to see it continually going on today is a blessing. But I want to defer or yield to the Doc to just give his take on it. But I just want to talk about how it started.
Evan Feinberg
Well, first maybe a little bit of history of this movement. So you mentioned Bishop Omar’s vision for this. It really started coming out of what happened in Dallas, Texas, and the violence against police officers, the protest that was happening in the community, and the work that you all did to begin healing that community in the midst of the shared pain that was going on. And not too long after that, in December, oh, I’m sorry, January. January of 2018, Martin Luther King Junior Day weekend, we pulled together an event, it wasn’t yet called Heal America, it was called a Course Corrections Conversation.
Antong Lucky
Course Correction Conversation. Yes.
Evan Feinberg
And I’ll tell you, I was sitting in the audience that night, and it was just a really special evening. So you had the families of Alton Sterling, who had been tragically murdered in Baton Rouge not too long prior. And then the families of police officers, innocent police officers in this case, that were slain in retaliation for what other police officers did to Alton Sterling. And their families came together and shared their pain with each other. And then with the community in Dallas, where we held this event.
Antong Lucky
And I think also to talk about that, to add to that, Omar and I went to Trayvon Martin’s mama, Sybrina Fulton. And we flew down to Florida because we wanted to talk with her and get her perspective. Because as you know, Trayvon Martin was kind of like the first of police brutality in that form that galvanized the nation. And I remember when we went and met with Sybrina, something that she said that stuck with me, but most importantly stuck with Omar. And she said, “Pain, no matter where it’s felt, feels the same. So, whether that’s me as a mother of a 12-year-old or a widow of a police officer who’s been murdered, it’s the same feeling. And we have to galvanize around not allowing people to feel this pain.”
And that became what Omar took in starting the first course correction conversation when he went. And then we went to Baton Rouge, and we met with the widows of the officers that were murdered. And we met with Alton Sterling’s family. It had this common theme of pain and forgiveness that Omar wanted to bring to the stage to show the rest of the world.
Evan Feinberg
So that evening, that’s a really important backstory to this evening, and this powerful conversation happens, and everyone sees the healing happening. And it was Martin Luther King Day weekend, and Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr’s daughter, videoed into the event to say that the work of that course correction conversation was furthering and advancing the work of her father. And to me, to get to be a part of that was one of the most inspiring things that I’ve been able to witness.
And so, that then gave rise to a number of other events doing similar healing work. Eventually, it took on the moniker of Heal America or Heal America Tour. And then, in the midst of this, George Floyd’s murdered in Minneapolis, and the Heal America tour was able to even go to Minneapolis to drive a healing conversation there. Just talk a little bit about what the Heal America tour then was able to grow into.
Antong Lucky
Man, it was an exciting moment. Not exciting, exciting but exciting moment for the movement to be able to… I think the authenticity of the movement, being able to go into communities who’ve experienced significant amounts of injustice and be the people who bring this together to say what Sybrina Fulton said in terms of, “I know we all feeling pain, but let’s figure out how do we come together?” How do we figure out how to move forward? To be a part of that and to witness that was, I mean, I can’t even explain it, but it happened over and over again. And the results were the same in all cities. You would come into a city, where they seem that their problems are irreconcilable. There’s the north side, and there’s the south side, it’s the white side, and it’s the black side, and they don’t mix.
But here we are with the Heal America movement, we’re coming in saying that we all got a part to play, that we got to come to the table, that we got to figure this out, that our divides that separate us is not bigger than the opportunities that are in front of us. And to be able to say that and see the magic happen over and over again, where you have people on stage who would never come in the same room together, hugging and crying, saying we have to move our prospective city forward, was something to see. And that’s kind of how the Heal America movement metamorphosed. I mean, across the country, just seeing that, man, I don’t have words for it. It was so powerful. Each time I can say Dallas was the most powerful, but when I went to Baton Rouge, I could say Baton Rouge was the most, then Detroit.
And it was just back and back. You see this happen over and again. Then you get the sense that this is what our country needs. Our country needs a Heal America movement. Our country really needs to be healed. And the only way you can heal, you got to acknowledge the pain, the sore, and then you got to work to put the Neosporin, or the peroxide, or whatever you need, so that it can heal. And that’s by, as Doc said earlier, empowering people to be a part of the process. Bringing people together to be a part of the process, to move us forward. That’s the only prerequisite to healing.
Evan Feinberg
Take us from there, Buster. Tell us about what this movement can mean and should mean for how we address some of these divides and injustices in our country moving forward.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Well, Omar, in the first instance, considered me kind of an older advisor.
Antong Lucky
You were the older advisor. You’re not old, but you were the advisor.
Dr. Buster Soaries
And so, to that extent, he conferred with me on strategy. He conferred with me on philosophy. We talked a lot about what a movement is just generically and what healing actually means. I was leveraging two things. One is my knowledge of what Omar had done in the past. And he asserted, and I agreed that if he can bring Crips and Bloods together, people who were aiming guns at each other, then the strategy and the foundational principles of that could apply to any divide.
And so I saw that, and I admired that, and I supported that. Also, my background involved trying to help people get past this pain. I recall in 2007, Don Imus, a national radio personality, was on the radio. And he said some of the ugliest things about the Rutgers women’s basketball team that had ever been said in public. And these young women were members of my church and the coach.
And it was the largest race story of the year. It was on the cover of Time Magazine, Oprah. But the goal was not to fight Don Imus. The goal was to bring the two together, and within the week of the incident, I actually facilitate a meeting between Don Imus, his wife, and the Rutgers team and their parents. And at the end, we had a press conference. And Don Imus apologized. The young lady said we forgive him. Moved on and graduated.
And so I understood what Omar was talking about. One, because I knew his authenticity. Two, it was a part of my ethos personally. And I just signed on to do whatever it was Omar thought I could do to be helpful. Of course, COVID ended Omar’s life prematurely for us. God had a plan. By that time, Antong had been a protege of Omar long enough to be the Antong that we see here today. And I was certainly willing to support. My co-chairing has more to do with my supporting Antong than it is signing up for a lot of work. But I think what Omar’s vision was, first of all, Omar’s vision was to take these events and turn them into a more sustainable structure and to leverage Stand Together’s reach into the business world and Urban Specialists’ reach into the community world and ultimately bring major community leaders, and major business leaders together to really focus on massive healing.
Evan Feinberg
So what’s happening with Heal America right now? Where is the movement today? Where’s it going?
Dr. Buster Soaries
Well, right now, we are in the, what we call the Summer of Healing, which is really the transition from the Heal America Tour into the more sustainable bottom-up institutional capacity building. And we identified 43 organizations that are doing various types of bridging divides with a priority being around community and policing. We are involved through Stand Together in informing and attracting business leaders to the work, and I would say infecting their spirits with a commitment to this work. And I think what we’re going to see coming out of this summer are some best practices. We’re going to see some cities that the Heal America Tour can visit to celebrate some of the healing that’s happening. And we’re going to see the larger community that’s looking for solutions to be inspired, and informed by this experience that Stand Together has invested in. And the future bodes well for the Heal America movement.
Evan Feinberg
That’s really exciting progress. And I couldn’t be more thrilled with the opportunity for Heal America to drive this national movement that you clearly have laid out so important necessary. You talked about those 43 organizations and I’ve gotten to meet a lot of those leaders. These aren’t your big traditional nonprofits, right? These are grassroots organizations, small mom and pop nonprofits in these communities, sometimes that are not even nonprofits. Often, it’s faith leaders or it’s coaches of the middle school football team, or the youth pastor at a local church, or a nonprofit that’s just one person who started their own effort. But you all have found the healers in these communities who have the lived experience and ideas to be the next Lulu in their community to address these issues from the bottom up. It’s really, really inspiring stuff.
Dr. Buster Soaries
It really is. And we seized on summer mainly because during the summer, more people are outside. During the summer, we always have spikes in violence. During the summer, we have an increased tension between many communities and their law enforcement agencies. And so to be able to pounce on the summer, on the heels of Omar’s death and the Heal America Tour was strategically important. And it was courageous for Stand Together to take this chance because it’s unprecedented. And again, we’re dealing with what contemporary wisdom would call unlettered people. We’re not funding social workers and psychologists, and the people who are the gatekeepers to problems. We are leveraging not only financial but other kinds of expert resources, and putting them into the hands of people who are ex-felons, people who are single parents, people who are coaches, people who have lived the life, but are now doing the work.
Antong Lucky
And I think most important, what you just said, the last three words, people who are doing the work, who have oftentimes, been overlooked by the more traditional organizations, I won’t call they names, who always get the money, but it never reach into communities where people who are actually doing the work. And so that’s why I like the way Heal America is approaching this, going over the summer and to see the relationships that’s happening between law enforcement, and communities is a joy to me. And especially in Dallas, the work that we have been doing with Chief Eddie Garcia, which is our police chief. We’ve teamed up together. His summer strategy was about focused deterrence and hotspot policing. And hotspot policing, these are terms that have been around, but hotspot policing only means increased visibility of policing communities.
In our four hotspot areas, we did 2,500 surveys where we surveyed individuals in those communities who experienced high rates of violence. And to our amazement, 93% of the respondents said that they wanted to increase police in a communities, which was totally opposite of what the talking heads who say defund the police, or that we don’t need police, or tear that system down. But the people who were experiencing in these communities of violence said, “We wanted police.” So hotspot policing and us connecting, that made sense.
And then his other deal was focused deterrence, where you’re focusing on behavior change for those who are likely to commit crime or be victims of crime. And so for us, we created this whole coalition around, how do we provide resources for those individuals. So you got a police chief who’s saying, “We going to hold you accountable if you break the law. Hold us to that.” But at the same time, if you want help, here goes some organization, Urban Specialists, and here goes some employers that we can employ you with so that you be on the right track. And so that just made sense.
And so to see the chief at the table with real OGs, not propped up OGs, but real OGs in the community is amazing. Every time guys would come into our meeting and say at the end of the meeting, “You know what, chief? Man, I ain’t even like you, man. I wasn’t rocking with you, but, man, after hearing you, man, I’m with you.” And to see that happen over and over again because we understand proximity. When you bring people together and they’re not separated by media and headlines that says, “We going to tear this system up, police brutality.” But when you bring people together and they understand that we got the same goal, that we want a safe community, that we want to go home at night, just like you, the magic just starts to happen, man. And so that’s been happening in Dallas.
It’s been a lot of events where it’s true partnership. And I’m going to tell you before I be quiet. See, I’ve been stealing market-based management principles and using them in these coalition meetings. So our meetings are governed by principles. Lawlessness, whether a police officer, or individual in the community ,is not tolerated by this group. That’s a principle. That’s a principle that builds trust because one, it acknowledge that ain’t nobody above reproach. So we can agree that, okay, if an officer does something wrong, then it is accountability. And in the same way, somebody in our neighborhood does something wrong, it’s accountability. So it’s not inflated by our emotions that naturally kick in when some national tragedy happens. And so to see that work being done in Dallas is a beautiful thing, thanks to the Summer of Healing.
Evan Feinberg
Well, I’ll tell you the way you described individuals in the community and building trust in law enforcement, it’s so rare and it’s so hard for people to see the opportunity for police to focus on what they should focus on the most, protecting public safety, focusing on violent crime, that’s their primary charge. And a lot of folks see the police through what they’re doing to harass the community, and force really petty non-violent crimes. And just something that Stand Together is really focused on is getting police out of that role so that they can really focus on the important and productive role of providing public safety, and preventing violent crime, and protecting communities.
But as you described, if you listen to the public narratives, you would think that the only options out there are to defund and do away with the police or to back the blue in all circumstances. But as soon as you create that proximity, everyone understands that there are serious problems in policing and in the criminal justice system that’s putting police in that position. And we do need to address those. But there’s this really important role for police if we can build the trust and work together with communities.
Antong Lucky
And I love seeing what’s happening out of this, out of that proximity, and out of that shared responsibility to stamp out, or weed out violent crime. Because I think most people don’t understand, those in communities that I said with the survey, most people in the community, they scared of those people with those big sticks, and drums, and AK that they point… They scared of those people too! And so these people that the community, contrary to popular belief, want out of the community. They want those people out of the community. And they understand that it going to take a relationship with police officers to get those people out of communities. We got to say that and most people don’t say that. And the conversation around those officers who do bad or police brutality, that’s a different conversation. That’s not the same conversation. Those are two different conversations. And we can have both conversations, independent of each other.
Dr. Buster Soaries
And Antong, the only way you can know that is through what you just described as proximity. After that first shooting that I dealt with in New Jersey, white cop, black kid, the young brothers in the public housing, they armed up and they made a commitment to shoot a police car on Saturday night. And so I put the word out that I’m going to be in a police car and you may shoot me. And I rode in the command car all night Saturday night. And that experience exposed me to the fear of the police and the fragility of the police. And until you get close enough to experience each other’s reality, you can’t separate the conversations.
And that’s what we need. We need the ability to discern the different conversations because there are different solutions, but the solutions have to be based on the same principles. And that’s critical. But police in America are looking for help. What police officer wants to be perceived as, automatically condemned as being brutal simply because someone else in a uniform was. I’m a preacher, I don’t want to be condemned for every corrupt preacher.
Antong Lucky
And vice versa. Community’s the same. It’s not no monolithic thought. We can’t paint with a broad brush. We have to look at stuff individual and deal with it on individual basis. Because if you meet one good police officer, then you can’t say all police officer bad, but if you meet one good person in the community, you can’t say all people in the community bad. And that’s what we have to stand up and keep pushing forward. We got to push that. And lastly, Evan, I do a training with police officers and it’s 95% police officers when I go into these trainings. And before I go in, it’s about implicit bias and how to engage in community. I always put a picture of me and my white prison suit up as my picture, and I let them sit with it for five minutes. When I come in, they be ready in those shoes.
They’re like, “Who is this guy?” And I can feel the tension. It be thick, I can feel the tension. But at the end of the trainings, man, those officers, same ones who was staring at me very hard, come up to me and hug and say, “Man, how can I work with you?” In tears, most of them, man. Because it’s not the condemnatory language that they expected that the media, that the algorithm keep pushing for us. And oftentimes, like what you just said earlier, proximity kills the fear that happens when two strangers meet.
You got to have proximity. You bring them together, then there’s no longer fear anymore because we understand we want the same thing. But if we stay separated and siloed, these polarizing narrative, these talking heads will make us think that communities are bad and policing are bad, and we need to destroy it, which is totally untrue. I think going into these situations with these principles, these shared principles and proximity really forges a path forward for community and policing. It’s my thoughts.
Evan Feinberg
Buster, you’ve told me that story before of riding along with the police officers in the midst of that tension. And you mentioned not only did it keep the police officers safe and prevent further violence, but that it also got you essentially further license to work with those police officers after the incident, to then share the community’s concerns, not only with that one incident, but their perception in the community because of the policing practices. And it led to training and improvement in policing in your area as a result of that built trust. Can you talk about what it means for that proximity in relationship? What it means for actually driving real reform?
Dr. Buster Soaries
Yeah, it’s a relationship. Relationships don’t just happen. And as humans, just whatever our race, whatever our role, we are built to live in relationship. And when there’s no relationship, there’s a vacuum and the vacuum is filled with ignorance, fear, rumors, hatred. That relationship for me has helped create solutions.
A good example, the public housing behind the church had this challenge because we had a lot of young people who were on the streets playing loud music late at night and right in front of the senior citizen building. So the seniors would call the police, and when the police would come, they’d be kind of aggressive, and the other people on the other side would then accuse the police of being too aggressive. So now it’s a conundrum.
If the police come and they are aggressive, then it’s police brutality. If they don’t come at all, then it’s neglect. And what we did was we took some of our guys, at that time, they were like OG types. And we created a deal with the police where when one of the seniors called, they would call us and hold back for 10 minutes. And our guys, on weekends, would go talk with the guys on the corner, separate the bad guys from out of town with the good guys who just lived there. And by the time the police came, the police then were able to do their jobs without fear of being accused of being brutal. And without being confused as to who is who.
That’s the kind of work I did in one neighborhood for 30 years. But it commenced with forming a relationship where we can talk to each other, where we can help the police. I don’t know if you have it in Dallas, but we had this don’t snitch culture where people don’t want to help the police, which means that if the police don’t solve the crime, we accuse them of neglect.
But we won’t snitch.
Antong Lucky
Won’t say nothing.
Dr. Buster Soaries
If we won’t say anything, then how can they solve the crime? And it’s that kind of relationship. After George Floyd was killed, the next Sunday, we had our police director in the pulpit of the church talking to the congregation about police practices, talking to the whole community because we were streaming about whether or not their police are trained to put knees on necks. But we weren’t meeting for the first time. And the more you build relationships away from incidents, the stronger the relationship can protect you from having an incident tear up your entire community.
Antong Lucky
Yes, it indeed.
Evan Feinberg
Well, I can tell you this, after talking to you both for our conversation this morning, I believe that we can heal America and that you have the ideas of this empowerment approach to healing America that can really make a huge difference in both your experience with urban specialists and in your community in Somerset, Dr. Soaries. I just believe that there’s just this incredible opportunity if folks hear what you have to say and understand not just what you’re doing, but importantly, the insights behind what’s made your efforts successful. I certainly hope folks will go to www.healamericamovement.org and learn more about the Heal America movement and how they can engage right now to drive change in their communities and in our country.
Antong Lucky
And I just want to say this, because cause we didn’t say this, I want to say this because it ain’t been said, that we can engage different perspectives to get good solutions, better solutions. It’s okay to engage people who have different perspectives that we don’t have. Even though we can agree without giving up our principles, that we can find solutions when we engage people with different perspective. To agree with some issues don’t mean that you agree with all, that we can agree on something and move forward.
Evan Feinberg
Love that. Love that. Okay. Well, to close us out today, I want to ask a question that I’m asking each of our guests, which is what gives you hope? Essentially, we’re talking about big ideas to shape our organizations and our country. And so as we’re working on those ideas together, the big question I have for you is what, right now, gives you hope?
Antong Lucky
I think for me, what gives me the most hope is to see those individuals who have been ignored or marginalized or not included in the conversation. To see how the light bulb goes off when they feel that people value them, that people believe in them, that people are empowering them to see what happened and see the work that they do and how they turn on, that give hope that our country can head in the right place. And that we are heading in the right place. That’s what give me hope.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Yeah. I should have gone first. What gives me hope? A couple of things. One, I’m a man of faith. I believe in God and I believe God provides good people with the capacity and the resources needed to do good work. Then what gives me hope is exactly what Antong said, but that’s inclusive of you guys and the staff that’s supporting this work. To see so many young people today clinging to a cause bigger than themselves, believe in movement, and believe in people, that gives me hope.
And then finally, what gives me hope is the history of this country. When we look at where we are today and compare it to 1619. 1619 for some is a condemnation. For me, 1619 gives me the ability to proclaim from the rooftops that we’ve come that far. We’ve come from chattel slavery. We’ve come from despotic rule of King George and England. We’ve come through the Great Depression. This country was founded on principles that give us the right to aspire for greater greatness. And if we could make it through the pain of so many challenging and deplorable situations in the past, then I believe we can make it through the pain that we face today.
Evan Feinberg
Wow. Well, thank you both. Thank you, Antong Lucky. Thank you. Buster Soaries. Thank you for your life’s work, for your passion, your commitment, and for sharing some of these insights with our listeners today.
Dr. Buster Soaries
Thank you, Evan. And thank you for what you do and for how you do it, and including us in your work.
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