-Roy Wood Jr., thank you so much for joining me.
I really appreciate this.
Where are you quarantined right now?
Is this -- Are you in New York?
-No, we stayed as long as we could
and then a couple of weeks ago made the drive down south --
myself, my girl, our 4-year-old --
and drove 16 hours to Alabama.
So that's where we are now, good old Birmingham.
-Can you talk to me about what the past week has been like
for you in Birmingham, in Alabama?
-So, Birmingham, you know,
I don't think it's really that different from a lot of
what's going on in other places,
but we did have something interesting,
you know, that gave me a sense of the community
of what Alabama is,
and so, on Sunday night, we had a protest.
We had a peaceful protest at a park downtown
in the Civil Rights District.
And so this is where Birmingham, to me,
is just such a different place to be from,
is that, you know, when you talk about justice,
this place is just rich with it and it's rich with people
willing to fight for it, so everybody's at the park
for the peaceful protest.
And a good friend of mine,
comedian Jermaine "Funny Maine" Johnson,
he says to the crowd, "You know what?
While we're down here, why don't we try to tear down
that Confederate monument over there?"
And the crowd was like,
"Alright, yeah, let's go do that."
So, you know, people were trying --
This is how ready Birmingham is to be done with racism.
Somebody in downtown Birmingham pulled up a pickup truck
with a rope and tried to pull down
a million-ton Confederate monument, with a pickup truck!
That's how tired we are of -- It didn't work. It didn't work.
-I'm gonna say, "Did it work?" No, not even close.
-No, but Mayor Randall Woodfin came out, you know.
He spoke with Jermaine and he spoke with the crowd
and he said, "Give me two days to get this done,"
and the mayor got it done in one,
and the Confederate monument is down,
and that came as a result of people,
you know, coming together.
You know, there was a lot of stuff that happened after that
in the streets of Birmingham, no different from everywhere else,
and a lot of that stuff -- all of that stuff happened,
you know, without the mayor or, you know, Jermaine Johnson
telling people to go do that.
Nobody told people to go do that.
People were gonna tear stuff on their own initiative,
and that's what happened, but the thing I want to get to
is that the next morning, in that same Civil Rights District,
there's a black woman optometrist, Dr. Adams,
and Dr. Adams' place is one of the places that got torn up,
and myself and a gang of other locals, we just showed up
and we just started cleaning, man.
We started cleaning, and during that time
of just shoveling glass, I mean, the entire city came together,
black, white, young, and old.
People brought food. People brought music and water.
A homeless person came up and donated their time, and...
-Wow!
-...to be able to see that sense of community here,
you know, that was dope, you know.
-That's amazing. -I really hope --
I really, really hope, you know, what doesn't happen
is that we don't, you know, lose sight of that.
And so, so, to bring that all back together,
so, then we catch word --
this is how together the city of Birmingham is, Jimmy.
So, we have a peaceful rally for George Floyd.
We tried to get down a monument.
The mayor steps in and says, "Hey, you know what?
Give me a minute. I'll get a crane.
Don't tear up your pickup truck.
I'll take down the monument."
The next day, the city cleans up.
Then the state is going to fine the city of Birmingham $25,000
for taking down the monument.
A wonderful woman with a church downtown
started a GoFundMe.
We raised the money to pay the fine,
and we're gonna give the difference
to black civil rights organizations.
That's the city of Birmingham.
-Well done.
Oh, my goodness.
Can you imagine that, in 24 hours that all went down, huh?
-Yeah, I just think that it's just a wonderful show of
initiative happening here in the city,
and I've never been more proud
to be from Birmingham than in the past 72 hours.
-That's a beautiful thing.
Right now, I think we can both agree that we need leadership
in this country.
What would you want the President to say,
if you can have him say anything?
-"I resign."
-[ Laughs ]
-I think that would be a start, you know?
Because it's not about saying anything anymore.
It's about doing something.
That's why I hate the rhetoric that's going around
with regards to protesting versus looting.
"Oh, you shouldn't violent-protest."
Why is that even a topic of discussion?
If you put a pot on the stove
and the pot started to boil over,
the first thing you're going to do
is take the pot off the stove. -Sure.
-You're not going to concern yourself with why the steam
was coming out every which way.
When you look at racism and systemic oppression
in this country, that's a kettle pot
that has been sealed shut and put on the stove for centuries,
and every time the kettle pot starts boiling a little bit,
the conversation is about why is the steam coming out.
Stop talking about that and take the pot off the stove.
And that's the only conversation that needs to be had.
I think that's the conversation that gets lost in the midst of
everything that happens, you know, at night in America.
But at the end of the day,
regardless of what's happening at night,
there's a lot of tragedies that are happening at night
that are sad and that are terrible.
But if you want those things to stop,
ultimately if you want those things to stop,
take the pot off the stove.
And then you wouldn't even have people outside during the day
blocking your freeway, keeping you from going
where you want to go. I want to go shop.
You think I want to be in a curfew, Jimmy?
I went out to the store last night.
Walmart closed at 5:00.
Do you think I want to live in a world
where stores close at 5:00?
Do you think I want to be outside shoveling glass
in 94-degree humidity?
I don't, but I will.
Just take the pot off the stove.
That's all you got to do.
-Roy Wood Jr., thank you so much for talking to me.
And I hope to see you again in person, my friend.
-Absolutely.
-Hug your family for me, okay, pal?
Thank you very much. -Absolutely. Absolutely.