Transcript: Mayor Adams Participates in 2023 NAN Convention's "The New Black Agenda in Urban America - Building Generational Wealth" Fireside Chat wtih Reverend Al Sharpton and Earvin "Magic" Johnson

April 13, 2023

Reverend Al Sharpton: Before we get into the business side, I wanted to have a discussion on what made people that have arrived and where they've arrived. And I have two people that I'm going to, for a few minutes, conduct a fireside chat. Two champions. A man that rose in this time to be a political champion, unparalleled on the scene. A man that we have seen stand up to those on the right and the left.

I tell a story all the time when we started National Action Network and had to incorporate and get five people assigned. One was a Black cop from Brooklyn, signed as one of the originators of this organization. Don't take that for granted. Many of you are from out of town. By a Black cop signing to be an incorporator of NAN, when the PBA and others were our enemies, took courage, he went ahead and formed 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement and built his way to being where he is.

The last time we had a Black mayor in New York was 1989 when we elected one. It took us 33 years with all that throwing up your fists and all of that taking to the streets. And whose streets? Our streets. It took us 33 years to take City Hall. And if you think we going to let some [inaudible] tickets and editorial board take it back, I bring you a champion from the bottom to the top, mayor of the City of New York, Eric Adams.

I saw you yesterday. I had to go in the closet. [Laughter.] And to share this discussion is a brother that came out of Michigan and made up his mind that he was going to be a superstar. He had a father that encouraged him, a community that surrounded him, and he went on to be one of the greatest basketball players of all time. In fact, he was so good. It's good to be ordinary, so you're not beneath what is expected. It is even better to be extraordinary, but it's another thing when you break through extraordinary and become magic, and that's what he became.

But then he not only stopped there when he put the ball down. A lot of folk don't know when to leave. He picked up another ball and started building businesses, Starbucks, movie theaters, now he's redoing airports. It's magic what he's doing in Black business. I bring the National Action Network, our friend, our brother, the magic man, Earvin “Magic” Johnson. 

Let me say, we're going to have this fireside chat for a few minutes, and then Magic's going to transition into our panel to talk about business. And then the mayor's going to come back down. He has other mayors here, Mayor Lightfoot is here to talk about public safety. And we have the women's luncheon starting on the other side. We've got a lot of stuff going on up in here.

I want to start by asking both of these champions, what was the impetus, what was the thing that clicked in your head and at what age that made you decide to go on and try and be what you became? Let me start with you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Eric Adams: Well, I think that —

Sharpton: Needs sound.

Mayor Adams: There were a few benchmarks, but one of them was significant when a young man named Clifford Glover was killed in South Jamaica, Queens. 10 year old boy. He was shot by Officer Shea, who was later found not guilty. And then immediately, sometime around that, Arthur Miller was a businessman that died from a chokehold on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn. And then the Randolph Evans incident.

And then Reverend Herbert Daughtry brought 13 of us to the House of the Lord's Church and gave us our assignments. I was a computer programmer. I was not going into law enforcement. And he told us he wanted us to go in and go into law enforcement and fight for him. But then, because he said, "It can't be just about those outside, we need folks inside," and it probably was one of the most pivotal moments for me to go in with that real mission and just really fulfill that.

And then the second probably most significant moment was 32 years ago when we sat down and you said, "I need you to be one of the five of the original incorporation papers in joining NAN." And from that day on, we said, January 1st, 2022, I'll become the mayor of the City of New York and we're here.

Sharpton: All right. Magic, what was your moment?

Earvin “Magic” Johnson: Well, I think first of all, Rev, let me just say, starting off with my father, my father worked for General Motors for 30 years. Never missed a day, never was late. So he won an award for that. But also, with 10 kids, he had to take on a second job. So we had a trash hauling service so we would go pick up people's trash back in Michigan. So every day in the summer, I was on that truck with him. But in the wintertime, I would go on Saturdays with him. And the thing that really changed my life one day was we had a snowstorm in Michigan. I thought we weren't going on that truck that day. He said, "Oh, no, no, no. We still going to pick up these pieces of trash." 

So my job, Rev, was to get all the loose trash around the barrel. My father would pick up the barrel, very strong man. It was about seven below and too cold for a 15-year-old boy to be out there in that cold. I did the job halfway and I ran back, got in the cabin and got warm. By the time I thought I closed the door, my father stopped the door from closing, grabbed me by my collar and drug me through that snow back to the barrels and said, "Son, if you do this job halfway, everything in life you're going to do halfway." That's education, that's basketball. That changed my life. Then, a year later I met two African American men who changed my dreams. Joel Ferguson and Greg Eaton, who you know well back in Lansing, Michigan showed me that Black men and Black people could own businesses.

I said, "Wow. I just don't want to play in the NBA anymore. I want to become a businessman." But I had to see them two in that role first. They gave me my first real job, and I cleaned one of the office buildings that they owned. Seven floors. I remember going up to the seventh floor, Rev, and I would sit up there, man, and I would bust in the office, the CEO office like it was my office. I would dream for about two hours like I really had an assistant out front and I would hit the intercom button. I said, "Aisha, can you bring me some coffee and donuts and today's paper?" I want to tell everybody here this, just because I was poor, I didn't have poor dreams. I figured out a strategy in a way to make sure that I got to where I am today.
I give credit to Joe Ferguson and Greg Eaton, and a lot of time we forget our role models are sitting right in our community. That's right.

Mayor Adams: That's right.

Johnson: We forget that.

Mayor Adams: That's right.

Johnson: So remember that. That's why Reverend Sharpton is so powerful and wonderful for all of us, not here in New York, but around this country and around the world, because he's opened up opportunities for all of us.

Mayor Adams: That's right.

Johnson: You have one of the greatest mayors that's ever lived. This is our time. I want to say this real quick. This is our moment and our time, and we got to take advantage of it now. Remember that this is our moment.

Mayor Adams: If I can go ahead, see if I can say that dad lesson, I've always enjoyed being out at night. I remember one day coming home late and in the bed sleeping. Then I felt someone standing over with me looking at me, and I looked up and I saw my dad. He said, "You were hanging out with the boys last night, huh?" I said, "Yes." Trying to get back to sleep. He said, "Now get up with the men."

Sharpton: Wow. Wow. I hadn't heard you tell that one. We often talk in New York and in other cities that we have power and position, Mr. Mayor, that we've never dreamed of. Right now, the mayor of the four largest cities in America are Black.

Mayor Adams: That's right.

Sharpton: Mayor of New York, mayor of Chicago, mayor of LA, mayor of Houston. Mayor of Chicago is here, she's on the way out of office, but she's here. We'll hear from her and a couple of mayors. We have Blacks in state office. We have 58 Black members of Congress. Hakeem Jeffries was with us last night. In New York, to get local, we have a Black mayor, Black police commissioner, people of color DAs in three of the five boroughs, Black State Attorney General. We have the Black majority leader of the New York State Senate, Black Speaker of the New York Assembly, Black US attorney in the Southern district, Black US attorney in the Eastern District, Black US attorney in the northern district, Adam Creighton Powell could have never dreamed of this kind of power in New York.

Mayor Adams: That's right. That's right. That's right.

Sharpton: With that power what, Mr. Mayor, should we be looking at in terms of business? We talked about policing, we talked about if we end this and we still are just paying rent and hoping folk don't gentrify us out of our neighborhoods, that's on us.

Mayor Adams: That's right.

Sharpton: If we are worried about them charging us too much for coffee, trying to buy $5 latte and don't have a job, that's on us. What should we be using this power to deal with our business interests? Because unless we have economic power, our political power can't last.

Johnson: That's it right there.

Mayor Adams: Well said. We talk about the layers of those who are elected. But there's another layer that people often miss. Those are the individuals who are in charge of committees. They're committee chairs, the labor committee, the education committee, the housing committee, the law enforcement committee, public safety committee, and those committees no law is passed without going through those committees. The committee chairs are overwhelmingly Black and brown people. The power is just unbelievable. We never fathomed to have this level of power. What we must do right now is create a real urban agenda. That is something that you and I talked about and we're looking to deep dig into even more, but it must be a blueprint. My first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright, always says, "You can't have a scatter and pray mindset."

Johnson: That's right.

Mayor Adams: Magic did not win all of those championship rings without having a playbook to execute the play. Everyone didn't get on the court and just run around and do whatever they want. You executed plays. It's time for us to create a blueprint to economic development. The people with the expertise should be playing out their role. Public safety plays into economic development. Education plays into economic development. Those of our brothers and sisters who are deep into understanding finance should sit down and put their role in the blueprint so we can't have those that don't have the knowledge and expertise in the particular role they're playing coming up with the ideas that they know nothing about. Everyone should be assigned their role and come together with one blueprint, one document of how do we really move the needle on economic development. That's what we need to do together.

Sharpton: Magic, you have used your earned celebrity to leverage it into business. Where do we have the nexus of business and political power? Where do you see as a practicing developer and entrepreneur that one must now put the axes together and have our politics and our movements, our Civil Rights movements also compliment our economic independence and power.

Johnson: Well what we're talking about is building Black wealth, and so the private sector and the public sector got to come together and work well together. And that's why we're leaning on you so much, Reverend Al. And it's important that the mayor is sitting here. And he has to control this city and the spending power and all that, but let me just speak from our side of it. First of all, we got to work better together as Black people. We got to work better together. The only way this is going to work is that we work together. If we can do that, then we can build Black wealth.

But let me just say this, and I get mad when we get our opportunity. Remember this, it's so important, when we get our opportunity, we have got to deliver. It's so important when we get that contract from the city, or Rev fights for us to have all these opportunities, and Nan fights for us, and then they put us in a position that we get those contracts, we have got to over-deliver. We have got to win.

Let me just tell you what happened to me real quick. It didn't matter that I was Magic Johnson when I went to go get money, raise money for one of my funds. I went up to CalPERS and CalSTRS. That's in Sacramento, California. They turned me down five straight years. Now I had a track record of success. I had the movie theaters in Harlem and all over the country. I had Starbucks. I built 125 Starbucks in this country in 40 different markets. But pension funds was not ready to invest, not only in me, but in all of you in urban America. But that final year, the next year, they finally said yes. They gave me $50 million.

Now I wasn't going to be successful just for me. It was for all of you, because if I had failed, nobody could come behind me. That's why I'm trying to be successful, is to open up doors for all of you and all of us so that we can... If I'm successful, then they are going to give money to the next minority, and the next African American, and the next one, and on and on and on. So when you get this opportunity, everybody out here, you got to be successful, not just for yourself, but for those who are coming behind you. That's what I wanted to say, because I get mad sometimes, Rev, when we get that opportunity and then we blow it. And then we blow it on things that you knew you shouldn't be spending your money on, changing your zip code and... Skip, one more second. I got to hit them with this one.

I want everybody quiet on this. This is very important. The first Starbucks was with my money. The second one, because of the success of the first one, I didn't take no money. I let the first one build the second one. I let the second one build the third one. Didn't take no money. So on and on and on. I didn't take any money until we built the 50th store. Let them keep building. I needed scale. That's very important that we understand you want to build scale, you want to have a lot of stores. That's when you change your life and the community, because now you also putting a lot of people to work that look like you.

And then the last note I'm going to give you, because I got to give it back to the mayor. The mayor is very important, very important. Make sure you have expertise. You got to hire people with expertise. And the second one, make sure you invest in technology in your business. It's very important that you streamline your business because it's not enough to now put it on paper anymore. You got to have computers. You got to have technology. And I'm telling you this because I do it myself. Make sure if anything you do, you got to invest in the latest technology. It's going to help you and increase your bottom line. Trust me.

Mayor Adams: Well said. If I could just dissect, let's take what Brother Magic just stated and let's dissect it for a moment. Trying to get loans, pension funds, political. Politics, comptroller, those who control our multi-billion dollar pension funds and investments, that is a political position. You elect the comptroller of where you are going to place land, how you are going to build out that land, how you are going to rezone that land, political. Are you going to have young people prepared to do the technology and the expertise? That's why I have Chancellor Banks building out our pipeline of education, so our children are prepared to fill those jobs. How do we get to chancellor? By electing the mayor that understood the chancellor must understand the people that he's trying to save and bring in the right direction.

When you dissect the story that Brother Johnson gave us, you see the intersectionality of how politics play a role in how do we even look at, do we get access to capital? Do we get the properties that are available? Do we have the young people available to fill some of the jobs that are there? If we don't connect agitation, negotiation, legislation together, then we’re going to be wandering in the wilderness and we are never going to get the productivity that we're looking for.

Johnson: And Reverend Al, everybody, understand what those contracts are with the city, and understand how you have to go after those contracts. See, we can't complain if we don't know what it takes to get the contract.

Sharpton: That's right.

Johnson: So that's very important as well. I just wanted to...

Sharpton: And when we get in the room, as Eric can tell you as we wind down, we got to address real issues, including economic issues.

Mayor Adams: That's right.

Sharpton: I remember 20 some odd, about 25, 26 years ago, we were getting ready to help support the Million Man March. And we started telling everybody, you got to support the march, when all of us got on board. We went and met with the state controller, Eric, and I'll never forget, I'm sitting there getting ready to ask him how much of the state pension funds will he invest with Black money managers. One of the so-called... I call y'all dirty rather than grassroot. There's a difference between dirt and grassroot. Some folk are just dirty. Others are grassroots we planted and such. And one of the dirty activists said, "We want to know if you going support the Million Man March." I said, "I don't care if he's supporting the Million Man March." He's over the pension fund. You come in here to ask this guy, who's white and removed from our community... It's easy for him to say, "Yep, I support y'all [inaudible] each other. Now get out of my office," so he can cut the deals across town. The way to support our march is to do business with us.

Johnson: There you go.

Mayor Adams: That's right. And bringing it in, that's such an important story, because if I'm going to roll in, I'm going to roll deep with my expertise. And people are willing to give us a meeting when we are asking for crumbs. But when you come in with your expertise, I just brought on Mike Gardner, who's my chief diversity officer.

Sharpton: He's here. Stand up Mike.

Mayor Adams: We have over $20 billion in procurement for goods and services. We need toilet tissue for our city services. We need soap to clean your hands. We need Clorox to clean the floors. We're spending billions of dollars for the asylum seekers and the migrants. We should be supplying that food. Jerk chicken is just as good as someone else's food. So we need to dissect where the money is being spent and then create the contracts based on that. And we sat down with Magic a few weeks ago to talk about what he's doing at JFK Airport. August Martin the chancellor, went over to August Martin after the meeting, because August Martin is right close to the airport. Those are thousands of jobs that people can fill, and our young people could fill. And so our role is to dissect how we're spending the money. Then make sure those who are doing business with the city buy into the Maynard Jackson philosophy. You come to my city and doing business, you must make sure you are employing locally, the people in the city.

Johnson: There you go. There you go. Right there.

Sharpton:  And let me say this, in line with what the mayor was saying, that I remember in 2001, I went to Vieques, Puerto Rico to join the protest with three of our Latino elected officials protesting the Navy bombing in Vieques. And we went, had this civil disobedience, climbed through the Navy fence, sat down. They arrested us as we knew, got to court. And I'm standing with the Latinos because they stood with us when we did Amadou Diallo the year before, Latino elected officials laid down in front of police headquarters and went to jail. So I figured we would do our support for them, Magic. Little did I know that when we got to court, they got 40 days. I got 90 days. I said something about this coalition ain't working out.

But I digress. I'm still trying to recover 21 years later from that 90 day. But the thing that occurred to me, Mayor Eric Adams, is that when I was in jail, a large percentage of the people in jail are Black and Latino, but none of us get the contract for the toilet paper. I mean we in the jail, and I said, "Well who got the contract on the toilet paper?" Who makes the forks and the knives? We never looking there. We so busy on trying to get out. I start asking who got in. Because, this is millions of dollars.

Mayor Adams: Billions.

Sharpton: Billions of dollars. Federally funded. So when we meet with our Congress people and the senators we need to be talking about not only are we disproportionately the inmates, we are disproportionately not getting the contract.

Johnson: There you go.

Mayor Adams: That's right. That's right. And that's why people ask all the time, why are you always under fire? It's because they know the gig is up with me. They know I know how to follow where the resources are coming from, and I am going to the crevices of this problem. So we want real empowerment. We should not only be talking about closing Rikers, we need to close the pipeline that feeds Rikers and make sure that we not creating a bunch of mini Rikers.

Johnson: That's right.

Sharpton: All right, let's give a hand. Mayor Eric Adams. Magic Johnson. You stand here. All right, all right. 

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