♪ ♪ ♪ >> In the fight for civil rights and social justice, the National Council of Negro Women has led the way for decades.

Janice Mathis, the executive director of the National Council of Negro Women, will share their organization's game-changing strategies.

Also, Oscar-winning filmmaker, anthropologist, and social-justice advocate Kelley Kali will join us to discuss the expanding issue of homelessness in America and the need to empower women of color.

That's next on "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by... Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

American Petroleum Institute.

Through the core elements of API's Energy Excellence program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry in the U.S. and around the world.

You can learn more at api.org/apienergyexcellence.

Over the next 10 years, Comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income Americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything.

Additional funding provided by Pfizer.

♪ ♪ >> We're very pleased to welcome to "The Chavis Chronicles" the executive director of the National Council of Negro Women Janice Mathis.

Janice, welcome to "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> It's my pleasure to be here, Dr. Chavis.

>> I know you're from Greenville, South Carolina.

I'm from Oxford, North Carolina.

Tell us about your background.

>> You know, I have a saying about South Carolina -- if you can get out, you'll do well.

And if you think about the people that we both know who are from South Carolina, that might ring true.

Man, I grew up in a typical home.

Parents were schoolteachers.

They cared a lot about their students.

The schools were rigidly segregated, but that didn't stop them from trying to pour the best that they had into those students.

>> The cradle of the Civil Rights Movement, part of it is in the Carolinas.

>> Yeah.

>> We kind of grew up in the movement, fighting for racial justice, social justice, economic justice.

Now you're with the foremost organization, since 1935, dealing with the rights of Black women, the National Council of Negro Women, founded by the honorable Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.

Talk to us about the beginning of the NCNW, National Council of Negro Women.

>> Well, it has a storied history.

Mary McLeod Bethune was an educator, she was an agitator, she was an activist, but she felt the need to amplify the voices of Black women in a special way.

And she said, "It's not enough for us to have one organization that speaks, we need an amalgamation, we need lots of women's voices."

And that's what NCNW grew out of, the National Council of Negro Women.

It started with affiliates like Delta Sigma Theta and AKA.

And one of the things from the very beginning that I continue to treasure is that you didn't have to have a certain degree.

You know, I'm a Delta, and I'm proud of that, but you didn't have to have a certain degree or grade-point average to join NCNW.

It was for all Black women.

If you were a woman of African descent, NCNW was and is for you.

>> And then, after its founding, for over 50 years, the honorable Dorothy Height was at the helm of the National Council of Negro Women, and I've seen pictures of -- Dorothy Height's picture with presidents of the United States, she was a fan of all -- and a supporter of all the civil-rights leaders.

Talk to us about Dorothy Height's legacy over the National Council of Negro Women?

>> I think Dr.

Height is remembered for a number of things.

One is, the extent to which she was willing to pour into young people.

If you -- I mean, we think about Alexis Herman as somebody who is a -- a senior person today, but she was a mere child when Dr.

Height took her under her wings.

John Lewis, the day of the March on Washington, in 1963, Dr.

Height lobbied for John Lewis to have a spot to speak on the podium at the March on Washington.

That, I think, is something that she'll be remembered for.

The other thing is, she was an institution builder.

She said, "No, it's not enough for us to have clubs all over the United States.

We need a headquarters building."

And so by hook or by crook, and the stories of how she was able to raise the money and put the deal together, we own the only Black-owned building on Pennsylvania Avenue, at P and at 7th.

>> Today, in 2021.

>> Today, today.

And that is an -- >> An African-American-owned building between 6th and 7th Street on Pennsylvania Avenue.

>> Look, worth about $20 million and paid for, and heated and cooled and secured.

And that part of it, thanks to Ingrid Jones and some others, is doing just fine.

>> That's great.

Now, Dr. Johnnetta Cole is at the helm as a chair of the organization, and you're the executive director.

Tell us, what are the current top priorities of the National Council of Negro Women?

>> We call it Four for the Future.

That was a phrase that was coined during Ingrid Jones' reign or presidency of the NCNW, and we kept that.

And so, you think about healthcare.

Today, we have a program called Good Health Wins, the Women's Immunization Networks, and we're operating in a dozen states with about 30 of our sections, other national partners, working to increase vaccine confidence, increase the uptake of the vaccines, help people separate fact from fiction when it comes to -- >> This is before COVID or after COVID happened?

>> About the same time that COVID happened.

We realized it was in March of '20 -- almost two years ago -- we shut down our office on March 13th, and we really have not been back in the office full-time since then -- that this was going to be different.

It wasn't long -- You know -- it wasn't long before the disparities in who was getting sick, who was dying, only one out of every five African-Americans could afford to work in the home or had the kinds of jobs that could be done from home.

And so we stepped right up right then.

And then, eventually, you know, others noticed and started to contribute to it.

So that's one thing -- health.

Not just COVID, but why all these disparities?

I don't care if you look at hypertension or diabetes -- >> Pre-existing conditions.

>> Pre-existing conditions and the conditions that so disparately affect us.

So that's one thing.

The other thing is, education, education, education, but with a special focus on STEAM -- science, technology, engineering, arts, and math -- so that young women of African descent -- and men, too, for that matter -- can understand where the economy is going, where are the jobs of the future.

>> You know, there's this myth about Black women having the capacity to do science and technology and engineering.

>> And that's all that is, is a myth.

Talking about COVID, Kizzmekia Corbett, the young woman who helped to develop the mRNA -- Dr. Corbett.

>> Dr. Fauci refers to her all the time.

We wouldn't be where we are with the Moderna vaccine without Dr. Corbett.

>> And I can't tell you how many times I've invoked Dr. Corbett's name and reputation in order to talk to a skeptical young person.

And when they realized that somebody who looks like you, dresses like you, thinks like you, helped to develop these vaccines -- "Oh, I didn't know that" -- I say, "You need to stay off of YouTube and get some information from somewhere else."

But it makes a difference.

We took a bunch of kids up to Howard to meet Dr. Frederick, and he talked about "This place will change you."

He looked him straight in the eye, said, "I came here as a poor kid..." >> From Trinidad.

>> "...from Trinidad.

I had sickle-cell anemia, and look at me now."

>> He's the college president.

>> "This place will change you."

>> Esteemed heart surgeon.

>> There you go.

>> Since the National Council of Negro Women was founded back in 1935, and here we are now in 2021, what is the challenge of NCNW as far as generation Z and millennials?

Are you attracting young African-American women, other women of color, into the National Council of Negro Women?

Talk to us about your outreach to young people.

>> We have one natural advantage in that dealing with gen X, gen Y, millennials, and that is we have 70 college-campus chapters of NCNW around the country.

>> Oh, great.

>> At places as diverse as the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and Howard University.

And so, we are able to attract young women there.

They like the comradery, they like the service work that's involved in NCNW.

Now, our challenge has been, though, despite those about 10,000 students that we have who are members of NCNW -- their dues are minimal -- what happens when they graduate?

Are we doing enough to help them get into their careers?

Are we helping them find the fellowships?

Are we helping them make the adjustment from college?

You know, that's a leap when you go from -- Not you, 'cause you was grown by the time you got to college.

But for a lot of kids, that bridge over from being a student, full-time, to being a full-time adult, responsible for yourself.

So we've given scholarships to kids so they don't have to pay to be a member of NCNW when they graduate.

We throw them a graduation party, graduation gifts.

We want them to know that "We're here for you," and we bring in young speakers who can talk to them about having their own businesses, creating their own jobs.

That's another magnet that draws them.

And, of course, the civic engagement.

Social justice, voting -- and that's another magnet for young people.

They believe that Black lives matter, and they want to do something about it, and they want you to help them do something about it.

>> But I'm saying -- the reason I'm bringing this up is that, what is the National Council of Negro Women's position on reproductive rights for women?

>> You know, one of the things I did not say about Dr.

Height that I should've said is that she was a true progressive.

More than a decade ago, before her death, she signed a pamphlet, along with Eleanor Holmes Norton and Donna Brazile and a bunch of other women, laying out the case for why Black women needed to be in favor of what they call reproductive freedom.

This is not a moral question about shall we or shall we not allow a woman to choose to abort a fetus.

This is a question about who gets to make that decision.

Another thing is, if you study that movement, if you study that anti-abortion movement, it doesn't really come out of concern for unborn children.

It comes out of concern for controlling women and their behavior and their careers and their aspirations.

You've heard the expression.

I've had somebody use it who used to be a lawyer -- "You need to be somewhere barefoot and pregnant."

"As long as we can keep women barefoot and pregnant," so to speak, "we don't have to worry about them being vice president of the United States" or Kizzmekia Corbett developing vaccines.

This is about the anxiety of some men to control all women.

We look at it in that larger context, and I'm a lawyer by trade -- can't help it, can't get away from it -- and so we analyze these things.

You have to be careful what kind of analysis you apply to it.

>> So, my last question is simply this.

And given all of what we've been through in the United States with the pandemic, all of what we've been through with the Black Lives Matter movement, all of what we've been through now with these challenges to democracy -- you know, voter suppression, suppression of the right of women to choose -- all these things seem to be connected systematically.

So, given that reality, what is the hope of the National Council of Negro Women?

>> You know, it's interesting.

I hope that one day we won't need a National Council of Negro Women.

I hope that the day will come when we assume that every individual is entitled to just treatment and to equal opportunity and to fairness, and we will work ourselves out of a job.

Having said that, though, I don't think that is a realistic prognostication.

I think what's realistic is that we're gonna get through -- I can remember '68.

You can, too.

Dr. King got shot, Bobby Kennedy got shot.

I thought, at 13, that the world was coming to an end.

My White classmates in Greenville, South Carolina, said, "Your King is dead, your King is dead!

What you gonna do now?"

It was a terrible time.

We managed to get through it.

We'll get through this.

We will find solutions for the environment, we will ease the fears of some White folk that something terrible is gonna happen when Black folk take over, running governments.

I mean, look at Maryland.

Maryland just became a majority minority state.

Maryland seems to be running just fine.

I hope and I pray that there's enough strength in our traditions -- One thing the pandemic revealed is that a lot of what we took for granted was not written in the legal books.

We took for granted that a president would accept the results of an election.

There's no law requiring that he do it.

There's no law that requires -- We took for granted that people wouldn't storm the Capitol and try to injure people who didn't agree with them over politics.

Didn't need no law for that.

Everybody knows that.

We took for granted that if you were 18 years old, you could vote.

And so now we've got to think about, "What is it that makes us America?"

You know, it's not anything that's written in stone.

It's some flimsy equal protection under the law.

Due process.

One person, one vote.

Those things are as flimsy as a piece of paper.

But that's what makes us who we are 'cause it's not a language, it's not a color, it's not a religion, it's not a geography.

We a mishmash, but we the best country on Earth, and I think -- I think if we give these young people a chance, they're gonna help us find our way back there.

>> Janice Mathis, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women, thank you for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> It's my pleasure.

♪ ♪ >> We're very pleased to welcome to "The Chavis Chronicles" Kelley Kali.

Kelley, welcome to "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it.

>> Tell us, first, how did you get involved in not only writing for film but making your own film and then starring.

Girl, you doing it all.

You're before the camera, behind the camera.

How did your career get launched?

>> So, I started out at Howard University, so I -- I was an archaeology major.

I started out in archaeology.

I was an archaeologist for a while, a paid archaeologist, and I -- I was on a dig one time in Central America, and there was a camera crew that was out there, and they were struggling with the story on the archaeology that we were doing, so I volunteered to help.

And I drafted up all the questions to help formulate the story, and I didn't realize that I was associate producing.

I didn't know what any of that was.

And that movie went on to win all these awards, and then I was like, "Maybe this is something I could do."

So then, I got an internship at National Geographic Television and Film -- they're in D.C. -- and that sort of solidified my interest in combining my anthropological background and filmmaking.

And so that just changed my whole trajectory, and I did -- I started doing research in Haiti before the earthquake, the first earthquake, and... >> Yes, yes.

>> On children's rights and living conditions, then the earthquake happened.

I went back, caught wind of this orphanage where the nun was allegedly allowing foreign men to come in and sleep with the little girls, investigated that for years, created this short narrative that then went on to win the Student Academy Award and was in consideration for the Academy Award, and then that rolled into, currently, during the pandemic last year -- Well, we're still in it, but in the middle of the year, in July, I woke up with this pressing, pressing need to make something, and I called my friends from USC, 'cause I went to USC after Howard for my master's degree in cinema.

And decided to tell a story that reflected the times of what we're going through.

I remember seeing this beautiful Black woman.

I was driving to go get a COVID test, and I remember seeing this beautiful Black woman who was so well-put together.

It looked like she just got out of a business meeting.

And I was exiting under an overpass, and she had her luggage, and she was dragging this chain-link fence that was, like, this old fence that was laying around, and she was boxing herself in under the overpass, and it looked like this was gonna be her first night on the streets.

And so I talked to my team about it, and we just knew that we had to tell the story about the housing crisis that we're going through currently in the United States.

>> I want to get to the homeless issue, but I just want to get a little bit more on your career journey.

You've had an amazing pathway.

You mentioned the Academy Award.

You actually won the Student Oscar award.

>> Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

>> Tell us about this award that you won.

And that was about a film in Haiti?

>> Yeah, that was about the child trafficking in Haiti.

It was a fiction narrative, although it started out as a documentary, but when I got to USC, I was advised to maybe consider writing a fiction narrative.

Because just how you said, how -- how film and images can really impact and influence change, whether it be positive change or negative change, just depending on what type of narrative you're putting together.

But I was taught that it's more -- even more impactful to put your social message into a narrative fiction.

'Cause, like, the thing of a documentary -- and I come from documentary -- is that people who go to see documentaries tend to already agree with you.

It's not always the case, but oftentimes, it is.

When you do a fiction narrative and you put, like, a star in it -- so let's think of "Blood Diamond" with Leonardo DiCaprio or you think of "Beasts of No Nation" with Idris Elba, people go to see them, and then they end up learning about these causes, they end up learning about child soldiers in Uganda, about the diamond trade and it's killing people, and it changes legislation.

And this is a discussion I used to have with my father all the time, because he wanted me to go into politics.

My father was a pastor, Baptist church paster, since 16 years old.

>> So you're a P.K.

-- you're a pastor kid.

>> I am 100% a P.K., yes.

[ Laughs ] And he wanted me -- He was very politically active, and he wanted me to go into politics, and I was sort of going to take that path for a moment, until I realized the impact and influence that filmmakers and artists have over the community to create discussion through art, because people's defenses are down when you play a movie or have an art piece up.

When you're in politics, people already are a little suspicious about what your agendas are.

And media influences and impacts politicians, and so I would always have this discussion with my dad.

I'm like, "Dad, if you really want me to make an impact and positive social change in the world, I really think that I belong in this art."

>> I've been reading up in preparation for this interview.

Your new film that's out, you know, "I'm Fine (Thanks for Asking)," it's about homelessness.

But it's winning all the -- I mean, all the film festivals that you've entered into are just raving about this new film that you have out.

>> Here in Los Angeles, we've always had a homeless and a houselessness problem.

I say "houseless" because it's -- there's a little bit of a difference.

It's almost like that transition before homelessness.

So, our character is recently houseless, and she's pretending to her 8-year-old daughter that they're just camping in, temporarily, just for fun, while she's secretly doing her gigging to try to get the last bit of money she needs to get the apartment for them, to keep them safe.

And there's a lot of people, especially during the pandemic, who were impacted by not getting that last paycheck, because everything shut down, and they're just that one paycheck away from being able to make their rent, and then maybe they have to sleep in their car, maybe they have to sleep in a family member's house, and, heaven forbid, they may have to sleep in a tent temporarily, but they still have a job or they still have -- And they're working to just catch up.

♪ >> Danny, girl, your crazy ass still skating?

>> What is up?

>> Oh, man, you know, I can't call it.

How you doing?

>> I'm good.

You know...

It's just me and Wes now.

>> It's too hot for hugging, Mommy.

>> [ Chuckles ] That's a fair point.

I got shorted today, and that's why you see me going around, doing PostPals and everything, because I just need to get this apartment.

[ Knock on door ] >> Where are my wontons?

>> I didn't see any wontons on your order.

>> Maybe you dropped them while you were skating.

>> Danny, wait.

Are you okay?

You guys good?

>> ♪ I'll be right there for you ♪ ♪ Right there for you ♪ >> That's what so many people are going through right now, just hanging on by a thread.

So that's what this movie really analyzes and looks at and brings more attention to so that that portion of society isn't overlooked.

>> But overall, homelessness is not just a problem in Los Angeles.

Homelessness is a national problem.

As you say, the difference between homelessness and houselessness.

Just tell us, overall, why you decided to do this movie now?

Because it is, quite frankly, I think it caught everybody off guard.

>> I had no clue that there would be time, a year later, after we first started shooting, that this whole discussion on whether or not we're gonna continue to support and protect people's housing would even be up to debate.

Like, we had no clue.

And so now the film is even more relevant than we ever thought it would be.

All we were doing was telling our stories, people around us, the things we were feeling, the stresses that we were feeling, and it clearly was what a lot of people were feeling, especially here in the U.S., with the struggle to just continue on and keep a roof over your head.

>> Kelley Kali, thank you so much for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you for having me.

It's always a pleasure.

I hope to speak to you again soon.

>> We thank our guests, Janice Mathis and Kelley Kali, for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by... Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

American Petroleum Institute.

Through the core elements of API's Energy Excellence program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry in the U.S. and around the world.

You can learn more at api.org/apienergyexcellence.

Over the next 10 years, Comcast is committing $1 billion to reach 50 million low-income Americans with the tools and resources they need to be ready for anything.

Additional funding provided by Pfizer.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪