001good morning everyone such a pleasure to be here with all of you uh as you all know uh we have a really fantastic opportunity uh to see one another uh in this context um thank you uh for the uh i appreciate uh for now i'm gonna just avoid and um not take a look at the comments um but there will be a time when i'm going to ask you if you want to say anything to our speaker uh that that's a place you'll go but i just want to acknowledge where we're at and what we're doing um we are here january 15th at nine in the morning uh we have the opportunity um um to speak with a friend and someone who i'm being anxious for you to get to know uh he's someone who
002i know you've all heard a little bit about and i wanted to go ahead and invite jamal cole good morning jamal how you doing i'm doing well how are you doing today i'm doing fantastic it's a pleasure to see you once again um i've really enjoyed getting to know you over the past couple weeks and i've enjoyed our conversations and mostly i'm really inspired by the work that you've done in your life and uh i'm happy to share that with the students uh here at arms um so tell us a little bit if you don't mind just a little bit about your organization and and what you do in the organization because i'm really interested in that okay um again um thank you guys for having me um i'm jamal cole i'm the founder and
003a ceo of my block my hood my city uh we're a social impact organization based out of the south side of chicago we don't have programs per se but we create initiatives based upon whatever happens in society i like to think about us as like the red cross for the neighborhoods so our mission is to take care of people no matter what so if there's a snow storm you see us out there shoveling snow for seniors right it's really just following the demands of our instinct if there's a heat wave we deliver fans deliver waters directly to seniors if they're you know with the coronavirus pandemic over 8 000 seniors and people reached out to us from 12 different states and we we started um we had 150 youth teenagers that needed jobs so we
004created a program or initiative called youth senior connect in which all the teenagers were trained by rush hospital to make wellness calls to the seniors so they called them up and they uh shipped them ppe they connected them to primary healthcare physicians they um they shipped food they shipped a hand sanitizer all that stuff you know they shipped directly to seniors um we hired teenagers for eight months eight weeks over the summer um and then you know of course with the with all the looting that took place this summer we raised a million dollars for small businesses that needed help with uh glass repair graffiti removal light painting and construction so again i say that to say we take care of people no matter what if a meteor hit chicago tomorrow you will see our
005volunteers and our team out there doing whatever we can to help out i love the volunteers we have i love the organization we have 17 employees and um and we're located all around the city too that's really fantastic and you know when i when i look and learn more about your organization not only only am i inspired but i'm really particularly inspired because this is the kind of manifest vision as you've said of so many of the people you know working together but it's kind of an idea that started in your imagination and in your life and so i'm wondering if you can share with us a little bit about uh about your journey to get there yeah um that's a great question i think that um i think that uh can you guys still
006hear me yeah absolutely okay all right let me just make sure i got this in right um okay um yeah what i'm saying is that uh ideas are powerful weapons and they're tools that can be used to change the world so you know some of my earliest memories are um you know we the class of 1988 are determined to be our best at whatever we say or do you know we'll share a smile and lend a hand to our neighbor because no matter what will be the best in a lifetime and um those 50 words that was like the entirety of my preschool graduation speech and so you know since i was four years old you know my mom taught me how to do the hand gestures memorize this speech but that really was like
007the mission statement of my life and i just stayed true to that you know until now so i always knew i wanted to be an activist you know a spirit i always knew that um are you guys still with me yeah you guys still with me yes we are hello we hear you we hear you hello yes we're here i i we see you just keep talking tomorrow it looks like we're losing okay good good um so so yeah i felt like um that was the mission statement of my life and i just stayed true to that vision and you know i always wanted to you know i know dr martin luther king jr day is coming up and so i remember looking at vhs vhs tapes and staring into his eyes as he gave
008speeches to see you know had king really seen these places called the promised land or was this a metaphor he was using to create a great speech you know i want to be a speaker and a leader like that and no matter how many times i watch his speeches i was convinced that you know he had not only uh seen the promised land right but he had you know been to the mountaintop so me seeing all these speakers growing up these activists like you know martin luther king malcolm x stokely carmichael fred hampton you know i always want to be a speaker so when i graduated from college with my degree in communications i started crafting these speeches to deliver at uh my local library about whatever was happening in society it could be the
009red line closing down it could be charter schools coming into the area and us revamping our educational system it could be about the crime rate it could be about the the snow whatever was happening that month i wanted to talk about and so i started organizing these speeches and not only my community but different communities and um and and then i started listening to people and connecting whatever they needed to to resources and that's how i built this thing in 2000 and like nine you know i'm sorry jamal i realized i was muted i'm just wondering uh in terms of your journey to get there because you you know you referenced the speech you made when you were very young in terms of of you being in school uh tell us a little bit about
010your journey get to get to high school and college and beyond yeah yeah sure so um i come from uh you know i extreme well i guess it's relative poverty compared to poverty in other countries but i didn't know a food stamp you know wasn't real money until i put one in a pot machine in the brook right you know so i grew up you know my parents were definitely living below the poverty line they were separated so you know i spent a lot of nights homeless you know eating at homeless shelters i my first interaction with volunteers was while i was living at a shelter for thanksgiving and seeing them come in and give us turkey for thanksgiving and being embarrassed because i some you know some of my classmates from high school were
011you know in the shelter volunteering you know but um you know my father would always make me hold my head up and go get the food but um as i think back on um more so than having like a poverty of money i had like a poverty of imagination like i never knew anybody that went to college i had a deficit of hope because i never seen anybody look like me that went to college my role models were other than gangs or they were in the nba right and so that my what success to me looked like was either making it to the nba or becoming a rapper because i never saw it in different forms um i went to alternate alternative high school and kenosha wisconsin and um you know for me i every
012day was um a struggle between inclination and obligation like things i was inclined to do and things that i was obligated to do you know my friends you know if i said i was going to go to school today my parents would look at me like you going to school again this week you know so i never really had to like uh they weren't really reinforcing the things i was learning in school but you know luckily i was able to find a book in school that called all american colleges and i was able to rip a page out of that book and apply to this place called wayne state college in nebraska and this college in nebraska accepted people from alternative high schools all around the country so i was fortunate enough to to be
013accepted there and when i got out there i was connected to a basketball coach named rico burkett and i didn't have a scholarship so i walked onto the basketball team but when i when i got out there you know after six months of playing basketball you know my coach said jamal you know you have a great personality you know we like you but why do you have a 1.7 gpa and you're failing basically and so i told him i was like hey i went to alternative high school you know i'm not used to having these teachers let alone these professors um plus you know i can't afford any books i i don't have a scholarship or financial aid i've never even read a book in my whole life you know and plus you know people
014in nebraska i don't know if you know they're racist i mean they're calling me colored on the basketball team you know um my first day on the press conference people said hey um you know i've never talked to a black basketball player before um will you talk to my little brother on the cell phone because he watches the nba all the time hey will you talk to him you know so um i said you know coach you're asking me why i have bad grades but you know it's cold out here i don't have no money you know i hate the food it smells like manure out here there's too many cows and you know i'm homesick you know i'm having a hard time adjusting to nebraska and you know my coach his name is rico
015burkett he was really patient with me and you know i needed him to be patient with me at this time i was 17 18 years old and he just listened to me talking i said hey man you know people racist out here bro i'm hungry you know i miss my family i don't you know this is crazy he just looked me in my eyes and he said you know jamal you know what's missing from your list and i said no what he said your name's not on it right no excuses the highest level of maturity is taking full responsibility for your actions and i was like yo this guy's you know what are you talking about i'm not making any excuses man i just told you that i don't have any books i've never read
016a book what aren't you understanding coach i just told you that i i'm not used to having teachers i went to alternative high school i we didn't have teachers now i got professors i don't know how to study plus people racist out here bro it's cold out here i don't have no money i hate the food it smells like manure y'all treat me racist i'm having a hard time adjusting don't you get me and um and my coach was like jamal no excuses you know the highest level maturity that's taking full responsibility for your actions and i was like this guy's crazy man so um you know i left his office and he brought me back the next day and i thought he was going to kick me off the basketball team but he ended
017up giving me a 500 book scholarship and with this book scholarship you know i bought four of the five books that i needed that semester and in one semester in college i went from a 1-7 gpa to a 3-5 gpa right i have four a's and one c so you know i went back to the coach's office next semester say you got to play me now you got to put me in the game now because last semester you said that i didn't have good grades and you know i know all this is you know you know but you got to play me now and i'm four a's in the c what can you say about that man i got four a's in the c and you know my coach he looked at me he looked
018at my report card and he looked back at me and he um he said why why the hell did you get a c i said why did i get a c yo i've never made an a in my life you should be i got four a's in a c it's cold out here i have no money i hate the food it smell like y'all treat me racist i said i'm having a hard time adjusting man you know you should be proud of me you're talking down on me man he said you know um jamal no excuses the highest level maturity is taking full responsibility actions right and so i tell y'all that story because the entire time i was in college i might have played 10 minutes of basketball right i never played right at
019all i hated this coach i never played he didn't play me and um you know but i did graduate college with straight a's in three years so i mean i graduated college really fast i got to travel the world and um you know i wrote a book about you know this experience of hating this coach that never put me in the game and and that book got published and you know i started selling books downtown chicago and from the foot locker and those books got into cook county jail and when i when people they would come to the jail and tell your story to the teenagers and i got to the jail and you know i started asking kids like why are you in jail like why hasn't your life worked out for you and
020you know what the kids in jail said it's cold out here i had no money i hate the food it smell like y'all treat me racist i was like oh that's my list of excuses i gave my coach that's my same list i gave him and that's when my life changed and i realized that the entire time i was in college you know my coach wasn't teaching me to change you know a jump shot like he wanted me to change my philosophy of stop making excuses and so you know i just took that same philosophy into the alternative high schools in chicago and start telling youth hey it's about your perspective and how things work out for you you know what i mean and that's kind of how i started this um this after school
021program for youth in chicago that's a that's a powerful lesson and i think one of the things that i really appreciate about your organization is a lot of the work that you do is to give students in chicago the opportunity to just go to the other side of chicago and experience something different you know experience something that they haven't done before why do you think it's so important to experience different things i mean traveling is transformative and you know chicago wasn't designed for everybody to be inspired a lot of the teenagers i work with uh you know you know there's 15 currency exchanges in a neighborhood and there's no banks so if you ask a kid what's a job at a bank they don't know they've never seen a bank right um they have a
022lot of teenagers in chicago have to order their breakfast through bulletproof glass windows every day like could you imagine ordering your food every day through a bulletproof glass window you gotta hey you mean the doritos like you gotta you gotta yell your order um also you know there's more technology on the light poles than the classrooms every every light pole in the hood there's a a cops can respond to gunfire instantaneously right that's called shot spotter technology um the billboards in our neighborhoods all say cheap divorces and six six thousand dollar tax advances right you go to burger king it says get a 29 divorce you know what i mean that that's not inspiring like it's hard to be inspired when you don't have the internet and you got to go to mcdonald's to use
023the wi-fi like it's hard to be inspired when german shepherds sniff you on the train every morning this is this is the chicago that we live in so if you if you grow up in a neighborhood where you know there's a liquor store in every other corner and the funeral homes are marketing louis vuitton caskets in the window that's not regular right and that's not inspiring and so it's important that that teenagers get to see that you know the world doesn't end at the corner of your block you got to step outside your comfort zone and see more of chicago and and there's kids that have never seen lake michigan when they see lake michigan they say what ocean is that there's kids that want to be in marketing but they've never been in an
024elevator right and so that's not regular and so i think it's um i wish that i could afford to take kids to china but i can't so i just take them to chinatown or you know i wish i could afford to go to india but i can't i'll go to devon avenue or greektown you know you could travel the world when i leave in chicago there's 77 different communities and there's all these jobs so i wanna our after school program not only exposes kids to different parts of chicago but different professions in chicago so you can see what it's like to be a microsoft engineer an electronic trader right you can if you want to be in culinary arts we can take you to a restaurant to talk to the chefs and see what they
025do it's about job shadowing and exposure and that's why we work with 150 students per month in the 10 lowest performing schools in chicago and we take those teenagers on educational field trips if you will we call them expirations but we expose them to different jobs different professions or different cuisines you know that sounds uh amazing and one of the things that i'm really aware of right now is how young people in particular are so needing connection you know especially in the midst of a pandemic uh and uh and so you know one of the things that's been happening is in the chat a lot of the students are taking advantage of the opportunity to reach out to one another and to say hi because they're lacking that connection uh and and is this in
026this feeling of connectedness that i think you've been able to bring through your program by connecting blocks um connecting neighborhoods connecting people to their city uh and and that's one of the things that i'm really excited about trying to promote in our school community you know today is actually martin luther king's or would have been his his birthday uh even though we're celebrating it on monday and and it's a time uh and and we're here not just for this one day and not just for to have one day off but there's a strong commitment in this community and in the school uh for anti-racist uh teaching and and to try and create an environment that's not caught up in all that systemic uh racism and sexism that is so much a part of this country
027uh and so your message is really uh fantastic and valuable um i'm wondering what advice you have because the students that i work with are seventh and eighth graders so they're they're still young you know they're and and and looking outside is not something that that this world seems to promote particularly these days uh but i'm wondering what advice you have for young people who are uh trying to make sense of a world that's that's increasingly um uh feels difficult you know and and and and how you see uh your message or your example uh resonating with them what do you suggest yeah um well i would say first of all like yeah like um dr king was a person that had incredible vision right you know that's why i admired him about him most
028i mean he he was a leader that had the ability to see things that nobody else could see so you know um you have to know where you're going if you're going to get people to follow you right but you have to have a clear vision if you want to get people to serve and dr king can not only tell you where he was going but he'll let you know what the weather was like when you got there right he would not only in his speeches describe like beautiful hills and mountains and landscapes but he gave those destinations a name like the promised land he was an amazing storyteller and he had impeccable vision when um you know could you imagine if dr king had an instagram story or instagram page like he'd be verified
029right he'd have like a blue check next to his name he has so many followers i feel like um the southern christian leadership academy would be like a facebook page and the different cities would be different groups um i feel like um you know he'd be talking to nelson mandela on the whatsapp like what's going on in south africa man you know i think he'd be talking to him like that but he had he had great vision and at a time when at a time when um you know racial um discrimination was systemic dr king he he saw like he had his vision and he saw black boys to fight the cops on pettus bridge that they want to fight those cops um dr king stayed true to his message of non-violence by you know
030resisting by taking a knee um saying a prayer for him and turning back and there there were those that were probably like people probably looked at him like man you're a sellout right you ain't for the people man right but dr king uh he uh um he never wavered like a great captain he kept the ship going forward towards the destination he stalled which was the promised land so um that that's what i admired most about him was his vision and i'm happy birthday to you know the late great mlk but as far as the kids what i would say is about your vision too and it's about your perspective and um how to make sense of things is all perspective like quick story you know there's two salesmen right one salesman looks outside he
031sees a storm and he says man you know like it's raining real bad outside like with weather like this the boss can't expect me to go outside and make any sales so that that salesman stays home right and there's another salesman he looks outside he sees the same storm he said man you know it's raining real bad um you know uh with weather like this what a great day to go outside and make sales everybody's gonna be home especially the sales people especially the sales people and see your perspective and the way that makes sense for you guys is that some people look outside in chicago right now some students they might look outside and say man chicago is messed up right now the cops is messed up the school's just messed up the gang
032is messed up they're not going to go to college like some people gonna look outside and say man chicago messed up my city messed up the schools is messed up the gang is messed up the council's messed up but they're still gonna go to college and they're still gonna set goals so it's your perspective and how things work out and in the way that you keep your the way that you stay safe in the world is actually setting goals for yourself um don't ask me how it works just i just want y'all to get on the good side of the way things work if you set goals that creates a force field around you and if you're specific about the goals that you want the universe pulls you towards them that's the secret to it
033all it's like write down your goals and uh and also i would say like you know read a book man like you could say five years by reading a book if you want to be a chef if you want to be having your own business if you want to be up there read a book man you can say five years do you know there's books written by people that have done all these great things and people don't read them and they wrote how they did it i guess you know people are too busy on instagram yeah no that's great advice and i think i think it's really it's it's can be really difficult to think about taking that time to do what it needs to do to to build that vision but i really appreciate
034that you've certainly done that and uh and uh and you've helped so many people in your city you know uh one of the things i was able to share with the students was that uh you um you were named a couple years ago chicago's one of chicago's people of the year by chicago magazine uh and and you know and i know that that's not what's important to you but certainly that notoriety is a great example um and i just wonder in terms of other goals and other parts of your vision that you see for yourself because you've done a lot what are you looking well forward to great question man and i do enjoy uh those awards i never got no rewards growing up or no trophies so i'd be lying to say that i
035don't i don't keep track of all the all the um the accolades it's a um it's one of those things that you know for my daughters i want them to you know see and i want them to i want to set the bar for them but me personally man you know i'm looking forward to you know running for office and and and articulating you know the needs of the south side of chicago in dc i'm looking forward to um you know not only trying to change uh philosophies and personalities but also changing policies you know because i feel like my nonprofit organization exists because of failed policies and i want to be the person you call to change policies um i'm looking forward to um just just having serving more schools not only in chicago
036but in atlanta in detroit in california and new york city i want to expand our after school program and our our our volunteer efforts to different cities but um yeah that's kind of what i'm looking for and reading more man as a leader i have to read a lot more and uh and learn a lot more but that's kind of those are certain things that i'm um that are on my horizon yeah well you know i want to say that your example has been an inspiration for me and i and i feel like it's important for those of us who have the opportunity to influence others to to stay committed but also to stay in touch you know and i think i think another aspect of it is that when you surround yourself with people
037who are uh inspiring to you and you have the opportunity to reach out to them and talk to them uh there's there's an opportunity for synergy there you know i would love to see uh programs like the ones that you're starting where people are taking care of their block uh happen here in amherst and you know one of the things that you said was this idea that as a young person you were really facing the dilemma between inclination and obligation you know and and when you said that it really it was something i wanted to stick a pin in because that's a that's the point where a lot of our students are at and and i see that in their daily lives and and and it's this moment-to-moment decision can you talk a little bit
038about that and and and and encourage and how you encourage young people to think about that difference and and how to act with it with that choice yeah it's um yeah it's a inclination obligation those are the two different things but i would say that um there's always things to hit with that you're inclined to do you set goals goals kind of tell you what to write down your personal goals your weekly goals your monthly goals your personal goals your business goals your educational goals once you write them down that's the force field you're not going to be inclined to do things you know what you're obligated to do because you've written them down you've reinforced it i would also say that uh um you know the bible talks about it a lot it says
039that you reap what you sow and uh you know if you if you if you plant spinach today six weeks from now you're not gonna get pumpkins right that's not how things work if you plant spinach today um six weeks from now you're gonna get spinach now if you don't like the conditions of the spinach that comes up six weeks from now who's the blame come harvest time right the person that planted it it's the same thing with school man if you don't like the conditions your grades come june who's the blame from graduation it's the person in the mirror so it's all about what i would tell students though too is like um i would tell students to if it's about association too like bad association spoils useful habits so you know if you
040if you see somebody you say hey what you doing today and they say oh man i'm just maintaining you should run like you don't want to be hanging out with people just maintaining that that's not that's a mild approach to get out the trenches or get out of poverty if you get hang out with people that are striving man that have big goals because that that rubs off on you man so i would say stay away from people stay away from the mold thank god it's friday type people you know i mean it's not man i want to be grinding i want to be next to somebody that wake up and work out somebody to read somebody that has some goals because that that type of stuff is infectious and it's the same thing when
041you're hanging out with people that's uh that don't have any goals like um you know they say you're gonna be you're gonna be as successful as the people you hang out with for no reason yeah you know that's that's a great point i think i and and back to what i was saying about trying to find other leaders and other people who are inspiring me to do important work and that's certainly one of the things that i see in your example and i want to thank you for that i also want to just uh echo the message that you just shared which is this idea that we have a real opportunity uh in this interruption to think about who we surround ourselves by what what's the work that we're doing in our life and how
042are we bringing agency uh and and you know one of the things that you said was to try and choose something uh today that you can do to make life on your block a better place to be you know and that and that idea of acting locally and thinking globally you know is a really powerful one and i want to thank you for that hey um jamal i i'm really grateful that we had the opportunity to talk i'm really grateful that the students at amherst had the opportunity to tune in to your message and i just want to wish you uh the best not only for the rest of the day the weekend the year but also just really my my thanks for your work and your commitment to your work and and for your
043example hey well thank you guys for you know allowing me a platform to to touch people um you guys can always find more information about me at 4myblad.org and see what we're up to if you ever in the city and want some violent to do some volunteers some volunteering you can meet us on the block man i'd love to have y'all um y'all keep on uh dreaming bigger than your surroundings and surrounding yourself with great people man y'all have a good day peace all right thank you so much jamal thank you everyone all right uh well i want to thank you for your attention and engagement um i want to let you know that uh i'm not completely surprised by what was going on in the chat and i realized that opportunities to connect are
044few and far between so i'm not even really worried about that but i hope you all had the opportunity to hear what jamal cole shared and hope hoping that his vision and his life and his work can serve as some inspiration as you head into your weekend i wish all of you a great day i miss all of you and i look forward to seeing you in the future but until then stay strong and be clear