>> Kojo Nnamdi has been the voice of the DMV for more than 50 years.

The man with the soft tone and big presence was born in Guyana, South America.

He followed the call of the Black Power movement and eventually settled in Washington, DC, in 1969.

As part of his work in community education, Nnamdi directed two shows airing on WOL AM.

He became involved in radio full time at WHUR Radio as the news director and producer of "The Daily Drum."

Staying within the Howard University family, he hosted Evening Exchange right here on WHUT Television from 1983 to 2011.

Beginning in 1998, Nnamdi became the host of what would become known as "The Kojo Nnamdi Show" on WAMU Radio and still hosts its Politics Hour on Fridays.

In addition to his on air work, Nnamdi has been active as a community leader.

Among other things, he served on the board of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, and the board of DC's public access station.

His honors are too many to list entirely, but include being named Washingtonian magazine's 150 Most Influential People in 2007, and being inducted into the DC chapter of The Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame.

Today, Nnamdi's long time friend and fellow television host, Rock Newman, puts Nnamdi in the interview seat to delve into the life of the man behind the voice.

>> Rock, for you, this is certainly a vindication of taking on a fighter whom a lot of other people didn't want to take on.

And you must feel really good about this.

>> I'd said it's a great feeling.

We've had our struggles, trials, and tribulations.

We've maintain our integrity.

We did not compromise anything.

We just kept working hard, kept the eye on the prize.

And on the 13th, when he became the champion, they say that success is the best revenge, we feel pretty good.

After that sweet voice introduction, Kojo, we wanted to make sure that folks really knew that we had a history.

Welcome to the show, man.

Thank you so much for being our guest.

>> The pleasure is all mine.

Thank you for inviting me.

>> All right.

So I want to start with clearing up a rumor.

And that rumor is, well, I know part of it is fact, and that is that you were born Rex Orville Montague Paul.

>> You are right.

I was born and christened Rex Orville Montague Paul.

The point at which I decided to enter into media, into broadcasting, it was a time at which there were quite a few people in broadcasting whose names on the air did not reflect the names with which they had been christened.

I used to work with a guy named Nighthawk who was known as Bob Terry.

>> Bob Terry.

>> And when I walked into the studio and saw his third class engineering certificate, it said Robert Horn.

And I said, "Who's Robert Horn, Nighthawk?"

He said, "That would be me."

>> To localize that statement, that had to be at WOL.

>> No, Nighthawk came to WHUR when I first got started as the operations manager.

>> My lord.

Okay, okay.

>> Yes, indeed.

>> Because he certainly became publicly known -- >> At WOL.

>> Yes.

>> That's where he made his name and his reputation.

>> Yes, and so born Rex Orville Montague Paul in Guyana... >> Yes.

>> ...where, if I'm understanding it correctly, would it be fair to characterize your parents as having been somewhat conservative?

Uh, there seemed to have been some friction at a point, as you're becoming a teenager or whatever.

You very much wanted them to become independent, away from the British, come out of the British Empire.

>> Yes.

>> Talk to us about that time.

>> My parents did not necessarily share that view.

My parents were raised -- My father was born at the turn of the century, in the year 1900.

As a matter of fact, when I reflect on the fact that there was a pandemic in the years 1918 and 1920, sometime around then, I always reflect on that and said, "Why did my father never tell me about the flu pandemic?"

This latest pandemic got me completely by surprise.

I might have been prepared for it had he known.

But they grew up in that environment in the first half of the 20th century under British rule.

>> Yeah.

>> Were educated by the British and so reflected a lot of that in their opinions.

In those days, people were led to believe mostly by the British, that everything British was best.

>> Yeah.

>> And so as I was growing up and being more radicalized as a result of coming into contact, especially in my high school days, with people with more radical opinions, there was a movement for independence in Guyana that started as early as the late '40s and really took off during the 1950s.

And I do have to say that my parents, my father in particular and his friends of his generation, were not in favor of that movement at that time.

They felt that Guyana was not ready for independence.

They thought that the British had done a great job of educating us and socializing us.

And so they were opposed to that independence movement while I was increasingly and fervently in favor of it.

>> Were those influences local Guyanese folks, or were some of those influences more international, that were radicalizing you, if you will?

>> Excellent question.

They were both.

There was the local Guyanese influence.

But growing up in Guyana, we had two newscasts every day.

One was the local newscast, the other was the BBC.

The BBC newscast aired twice, sometimes three times a day, in addition to which the administration of the country was run by a British appointed governor... >> Yes.

>> ...who generally came from England, who had a significant influence on everything that occurred in the country.

The Dutch, previous colonizers, had built a sea defense wall in Guyana, and there was a comedic play on one occasion in which they talked about the fact that the sea wall needed to be repaired, and the British governor at the time says, "You cannot repair the sea defense wall now because that's where I walk my dog Fluffy in the afternoons."

>> Yeah.

>> So that was the nature of the control that was exercised by the British, both in terms of our movements and in terms of our thoughts.

>> Which international person or organization had the most impact on you during that transitioning time?

>> I think -- it's funny you should mention that, because from the time I was a kid, I became a member of the local public library.

And being a kid, I was not that responsible.

And so I kept the books past their due date, and they kicked me out of the public library as a member.

>> Uh-huh.

>> And there was only one other library that I could join that didn't seem to matter or care that I kept the books over due, and that was the US Information Services library.

>> Uh-huh.

>> And it was in that library that I found books that told me about one of the people who was most influential in my thinking at that time, and that was Paul Robeson.

I began to read about Paul Robeson in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and about the struggle that he was a part of in the United States, and that began to increase my consciousness.

The second person I began to read at that point was James Baldwin.

So if there were international influences on me, I think it came from the struggle of black people in the United States.

Those were the early -- among the earliest.

>> And those were your teenage years?

>> Yes.

>> Um, you left Guyana to go to school in Canada?

>> Yes.

>> Tell us about that introduction and what impact that had on you.

>> So I was living the life I thought in Guyana.

I was an insurance salesman.

I was making good money, had a Honda 350 CC motorbike, was single, dating.

>> Got it going on.

>> Having a great time.

But my mother realized that the path down which I was headed was not one that was likely to lead to, in her view, a successful life.

And so she literally conspired with a friend of mine who was a student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, to get me admitted to McGill University.

I was not aware that she had submitted all of my transcripts to McGill University until one day she literally came and said, "Here is your admission to McGill University, and here is your passport.

You're leaving in September."

And those were the circumstances under which I left Guyana.

Well, what my mom did not know was that when I arrived in Montreal in, I guess, September of 1967, what was happening in the United States that was influencing my friends at McGill University was something called the Black Power movement.

>> Yeah.

>> And so I arrived in Canada, and my friends and roommates from Guyana were giving me a great deal of literature and stuff about the Black Power movement.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

>> When you say 1967, you get to McGill.

It makes me think that 1967 was the year that Muhammad Ali wouldn't take that step forward to get inducted into the army.

So, when I asked Glenn Harris, I said, "Glenn, what is your insight into Kojo?"

In his most eloquent, poetic way, he said, "That Maryland farmer knows everything.

He knows about everything."

So 1967, Ali not taking that first step, me being an obsessive fan fanatic of Ali, he, more than any other human being, most changed my life, most influenced my life.

You get there in 1967.

What's your reflections and your thoughts about Muhammad Ali at that time?

>> It started in Guyana.

>> Mm.

>> We are teenagers.

It's like 1963.

>> Okay.

>> And Cassius Marcellus Clay.

>> Yeah.

The Louisville Lip.

>> Arrives on the scene of boxing.

And before he becomes heavyweight champion, because we are young black men in Guyana who have always loved boxing.

My father used to keep me up late at night listening to Rocky Marciano fight Jersey Joe Walcott... >> Yeah.

>> ...on Armed Forces Radio.

And in Guyana, you're listening to Armed Forces Radio.

And in the middle of the 12th round, Marciano hits Jersey Joe Walcott, and he's down, and boom, the radio goes off, and you can't pick it up anymore.

You're hearing -- >> Yeah.

>> So we were following boxing from way back then.

Then along comes this young black guy who is our age basically.

>> Yeah.

>> And he comes along, and we're following his career until the point at which he fights Sonny "The Bear" Liston.

And after he beat Sonny Liston, we became bigger fans.

So yes, 1967.

I am now in Montreal, Canada, following all of this, and he joins the Nation of Islam.

And he refuses to be inducted into the army because, as he said, "No Viet Cong never called me nigger."

>> Yes.

>> And so that's not who he wants to fight.

So we're following all of this.

And as I said, this is a part of the Black Power movement.

It's intriguing to me that at the same time as the Black Power movement, when Black Power was first shouted by the great Willie Ricks of SNCC in 1966, even as that movement was developing, it was affecting athletes in the same way that it was affecting us as students.

So you had people like Jim Brown and Lew Alcindor, later Kareem Jabbar, and Bill Russell all being swept up in this tidal wave of black consciousness and black pride.

And I'm sitting there in Montreal, Canada, looking at all of this, being impressed by all of this because I knew about Muhammad Ali before I came here.

The people I didn't know, that I learned about when I got to Montreal were people named Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown.

And H. Rap Brown was being interviewed one day by a talk show host on the radio in Montreal.

Was the first time I ever heard him.

My roommates and I all glued, listening to the radio.

That was the general environment to which my mother did not know she was sending me into.

And once I got into that environment, my passion then became following the Black Power movement and the civil rights movement as it was occurring in this country.

>> And you didn't stay at McGill that long.

>> No.

One year.

>> Yeah, one year.

And what most influenced your decision to leave Montreal to come to reside in Brooklyn, New York?

>> I did it because when I went to New York that summer to start working, I was working as a clerk at a Wall Street firm.

And there were several of my friends who were also working on Wall Street, and we used to get together at lunchtime, and there was a guy who joined us who was not from Guyana.

He was African American, but he was a member of an organization called the Black Panther Party.

His name was George.

And as we sat at lunch and George started telling me more about the Black Panther Party, I decided that this was the direction in which I wanted to go.

And so George took me to a meeting at the City University of New York.

In those days, CCNY, the City College of New York, and I joined the Black Panther Party chapter there.

And this was the same time, in 1967 -- 1968, I should say, when Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party started veering left towards Marxism, Leninism.

I was still a black nationalist at that point, following the Black Power movement.

And then I was working at a bank in Harlem, Carver Federal Savings and Loan, and I had just read the book "L' Etranger", "The Outsider" by Albert Camus, and it was about a clerk who had a job like I had in a bank, and how alienated he felt.

And I was feeling the same way.

>> You saw yourself.

>> I saw myself in that book.

And I said, "How do I get out of this situation?"

And a cousin of mine who was living in Washington told me that there was a program at Federal City College, a land grant school, and it was a black education program, but it was removing itself from the campus to relocate itself in the Washington, DC, black community.

And it was going to be called The Center For Black Education.

And he suggested that I might be able to find myself if I came to Washington and joined that movement.

And so in August of 1969, that's what I did.

>> I know you've got to look back and say that was some sage advice.

That guy looked into your soul, found in your head what you needed and where you need it to be.

That was a heck of a suggestion.

Now, while that's going on, while you're transforming, you're going to a Black Panther, become a member of Black Panther Party.

I remember my mother hearing, overhearing me on the phone.

I was whispering to a friend of mine.

We were getting ready to go to another Black Panther party, a meeting, and she was mortified.

You're doing this.

Are you sharing any of this with your parents?

Do they know the guy you're becoming?

And if so, what was their reaction?

>> I'm sharing this with my mother.

My father had died just before I left Guyana.

And I'm sharing this with my mother in Guyana.

And she, like your mother, is mortified.

>> Yeah.

>> What is my son doing?

This is not why I sent you abroad.

I sent you abroad to get an education.

And I'm telling her I am getting an education.

Maybe this is not the education that you thought I would be getting.

But for me, it's an education that's allowing me to see myself in a whole new way, in a way that I'd never seen myself before.

And to her credit, she said, "I have confidence in you, that I'm not sure I understand what you're doing, but it looks like your heart is in the right place."

And I'll never forget.

My sister had just graduated from medical school, and here I was in Washington, DC, with no income whatsoever, living in an apartment on Shaping Street Northwest for the princely sum of $80 a month.

And my sister comes to Washington.

I take her to a few classes at The Center For Black Education, and she says, "Keep doing what you're doing.

If you're broke, I will support you."

So I did have that support.

>> You had that support.

Did you have at that time a plan, a vision, and a purpose?

Or were you discovering it?

>> I was discovering it.

I had a purpose.

The Center For Black Education was formed by people who were veterans of SNCC, and they were moving towards a worldview that was Pan-Africanist.

It was within that worldview that I found myself and understood, began to understand my history.

That, combined with the fact that during that time, I got a job at Drum and Spear Bookstore because the same people who had founded the center had founded Drum and Spear Bookstore, the first black bookstore, and at that time, the largest in the country.

And I was able to work there and be able to spend my days being able to read a great deal about the history of black people and the history of the world, in addition to which, at The Center For Black Education, I became the head of what was known as the Communications Corps.

And the Communications Corps put out a newspaper called the Pan-African.

And we had started doing radio programs at WOL Radio under the guidance and leadership of a man named Dewey Hughes, who was then the public affairs director.

And so we were doing a show called "Saa Ya Watoto", which meant "hour of the children" in Swahili, and they liked that.

So we were then allowed to do a show called "Sauti", which meant voice.

It was a half an hour weekly news broadcast from a Pan-African perspective, but I was the editor of that, and that was my introduction into radio.

>> Evidently, man, going back to the sage words, and I bring his name up again, Glenn Harris, that that Maryland farmer knows everything.

Being immersed in the activity, in that activity, being at the bookstore.

That evidently helped prepare you and broaden your sense so that you were able to bring a certain knowledge, wisdom, and skill set to the interviews that you would ultimately do.

>> I'm sitting in that bookstore every day.

The bookstore only really gets crowded at certain times of the year.

At the beginning of the Howard University semester.

At Christmas time, when people are looking for gifts.

But most of the rest of the time you're there, not only do you have the opportunity to read, but you look up and here's Amiri Baraka in the bookstore.

You look up and here's Haki Madhubuti, then Don L. Lee, in the bookstore.

And you're able to have conversations with these people, and they offer you advice and guidance.

I'm taking classes at The Center For Black Education.

I'm doing the radio programs on WOL as a complete amateur.

And then in 1971, The Washington Post, ordered by the Federal Communications Commission to dismantle its empire in Washington, sold its FM radio station, WTOP to Howard University for the princely sum of $1.

>> Yes.

>> And the moment that station came on the air, it was on the radio in Drum and Spear Bookstore 24/7.

>> Wow.

>> And we're listening to this radio station.

And it's fascinating because for the first time in my life, I'm hearing my world on a radio station.

Yes, I listen to WOL.

Yes, I listen to WOOK.

Yes, they were pumping the funk all day.

I loved that, but here now comes a radio station in which I'm not only hearing music, but which I'm hearing the kinds of conversations that I would like to be a part of.

>> You are living in part the progressive, wonderful black life.

That's the yin.

The yang, you just mentioned, and I was going to bring it up.

You just mentioned you lived on Chapin Street.

I remember driving up 14th Street.

Turning left on to -- up 14th Street, turning left on Chapin Street.

>> Correct.

>> On my way to a radio show that I was doing at WOL.

>> Wow.

>> I got to the radio show, and here's what I did.

I made a public call to the chief of police at that time, Chief Jefferson, and I said, "I just came up Chapin Street.

It was difficult for me to make it from 14th to 15th, which is that one way street going north.

It was difficult for me to get from one block to the other, from 14th to 15th, because I was accosted, the car, by multiple, it had to be a half a dozen, people trying to do a drug sale."

So you lived there?

>> Yeah.

>> What did that mean to you?

>> When I left the Greyhound station, I caught a taxi -- >> 12th in New York Avenue for us Washingtonians.

>> I had already rented the apartment sight unseen, and I got into a taxi cab that was driven by a brother from Trinidad.

>> Okay.

>> And I told him the address I was going to.

He said, "You're going to 1447 Chapin Street?"

>> You're in the middle of -- oh, my Lord.

>> He said, "Do you know what's up in there?"

>> Yeah.

>> I said, "I know, but I got an apartment up in there, so I'm going to it."

>> Yeah.

>> And you're right.

In those days, Chapin Street was a hotbed of every kind of illegal activity you could think of.

But those were my peeps.

>> Yeah.

>> That's why I came to Washington, to be a part of a black community.

And the center for Black Education was located on Fairmont Street, just two or three blocks up from there.

It was walking distance.

And so I got to know everybody in my building, and I would sit there and play cards with them at night, and I could see all kinds of stuff going on that I turned a blind eye to, because these were my neighbors and these were my friends.

>> When you saw what was wholesale gentrification, how did that make you feel?

>> Well, you're right.

I've been living in Washington, DC, all these years.

And now when I go past 1447 Chapin Street Northwest, it's not the Chapin Street that existed when I lived here.

It is now completely gentrified.

Most of the people who live on Chapin Street now are white and of higher income.

But I stayed in Washington because Washington became close to my heart.

And even as the city changes, our representative, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, told me that she grew up in a majority white city.

So this is not the first time that the black population of Washington is no longer in the majority.

But even as the city changes, it is my resolve and my determination that I will stay and that I will do my best to make sure that as many black people stay here, that as many people of low income stay here as possible.

And as an indication of that commitment, I don't know if your cameras can catch this, but as an indication of their commitment, what you will see on my forearm is the Washington, DC, flag tattooed on my forearm.

>> DC in the house.

>> That's right.

That's a part of my commitment to DC.

>> And I know that the citizens here are immensely thankful for you being here and what you have meant to this town.

This is the 50th year of your being on the air, mostly continuously in Washington, DC.

That is a feat.

So do this for me before we go back to some more granular stuff.

What does that mean to you?

How does that make Kojo Nnamdi today feel?

>> When I walked into the studios of WHUR Radio in November of 1973, in a temporary building across from the reservoir on Fourth Street Northwest, I had no idea that for the next 50 years I would be continuously on the air in Washington, DC, never off the air in Washington, DC.

But one of the reasons I have this tattoo is because that black community that I walked into on Chapin Street was what welcomed me into Washington, what tied me to Washington, what made me want to stay in Washington, DC.

And when I found that news editors job at WHUR radio, yes, I had to leave my personal political opinions at the door.

But it was a radio station that existed to serve the African American community.

And so it helped -- its mission helped me to begin to fulfill my own personal mission, because we thought that what we were creating at WHUR in general and "The Daily Drum" in particular, was a news and information service that the residents of Washington, DC, and now its suburbs would find very, very useful.

And so I feel really good about having made that decision, and really good about the fact that the station accepted me and was able to put me in a position to be able to be a part of something that was growing in Washington.

To this day, I tell people that that WHUR is legacy radio in Washington.

It still remains one of the only solely owned radio stations in the country.

And people listen to it in Washington because their grandparents listened to it and because their parents listened to it.

And when I hear "The Daily Drum", a part of which I was able to help to create and realize that it is still a very vibrant source of information in the lives of people here.

I say, "You know what?

I'm really proud to have been a part of this."

And so, yes, I feel really good about the fact that WHUR, by hiring me, was able to launch me on a career that I could not have imagined at the time that allowed me both to be of service to people in this area, stay close to my roots, and be able to pursue philosophically the way I think I would like to live my life.

>> That is so uplifting.

Yesterday, I was hugged tightly by my goddaughter, who's a second year student.

In law school?

>> Yes.

>> At Howard University.

>> Yes.

>> And she was being pushed other places.

She really had her choice.

I tried not to overly influence her, but I was praying that she came here, but afraid she was going to go somewhere else.

She chose Howard, and yesterday, she told me it's the greatest decision she's ever made in her life.

She found and discovered herself.

And Howard University is in her DNA.

What I'm hearing you describe is how Washington, DC, WHUR Radio -- We haven't talked about WHUT yet.

But that's all now a part of your DNA.

>> And a lot of people believe that I'm a Howard University graduate, and I am not.

>> Yeah.

>> But as you mentioned, my three sons -- I raised three sons who went to Howard University.

>> Yeah.

And we were living in the Shaw neighborhood, just around the corner from Howard University.

And when they finished high school, they really didn't have a choice, I'm afraid to say.

I said, "You are going to Howard University."

And when they walked on this campus, they said, "We can't believe that we were living right around the corner from here in our neighborhood."

>> Yeah.

>> "And when we walked on to this campus, it felt like we were in the United Nations."

>> Yeah.

>> They said, "We've met people from all over the world and all over the country."

It was a whole different experience.

And like you, I have a granddaughter today who is a freshman at Howard University and another one who is coming next year.

And when you talk about this television station, WHUT, when you get there, all three of my sons were attending Howard while I was working at Howard University television.

And when the technicians and the engineers and I would be fooling around, and we did the show, and at the end of the show, my three sons would be waiting for me at the end of the show, all bigger than I am.

But the technician would say, "Uh-oh, here come his bodyguards.

Back off, back off!"

>> [ Chuckles ] As a young man who had the journey that you had sort of leaving Guyana, having that tension, strain, if you will, you know, with your parents, because you were from another generation and looking for change and looking for different things, I want to ask you if you would go back to when your first son was born, we've talked a lot about the profession and the journey, and I'd like to get from you that moment, what that meant to you, if and how that changed you.

>> Because of the era that I mentioned that existed during that time, the birth of a black child, a boy, at that point was, for me an indication of how I had to guide my own future.

Because by that time, I realized that being black in America and being a black male in America was by definition a dangerous place to be, and that in order for my son then and my sons later to be able to navigate in that environment, I had to be able to set some kind of example.

So from the time my sons were born, I started reading them bedtime stories.

It was really fortunate for me that I was associated with Drum and Spear Bookstore because I was able to get books for black children that I could read to them.

And now that they're over 50 years old, I look back on it, and they hate to hear me say, I said, "You always just start giggling when I would be reading this."

"We never giggled."

"Yes, you would be."

But it was important for me to chart a course for them that would give them the confidence to be able to set out into this world and to establish themselves as proud black men.

And I got to say, being on the job at WHUR helped a lot in that regard, because one time, there was a teacher's strike in Washington, DC, and I just took them to work with me every day.

And one of my jobs was covering the teacher's strike.

And so they began to learn a lot.

But yes, at the time when those children were born, and my three sons are very close together in age.

Two of them are twins.

It was very important to try to chart a course and set an example for them.

>> So you've covered everything, the news for 50 years.

I'm going to do something that might be like asking you to say what's one of your -- who's your favorite child?

Is there a -- I'm going to -- man, I'm going to give you two or three choices.

Is there, say your top three choices of stories that you've had to cover?

>> When the Clintons were in the White House and I was at Howard University Television, a couple of us went here from Howard University Television to visit the White House.

And there was a very, very long receiving line waiting for the Clintons.

And so I decided I wasn't joining that receiving line, we're leaving.

And on the way out, black members of the Secret Service said, "Kojo, where are y'all going?"

I said, "We're leaving."

They said, "Unh-unh, you ain't going, we'll be taking you to the front of the line."

>> Come on, come on, Kojo.

>> Front of -- That's what this television station meant to those people.

They took us to the front of the line so we could get out of there.

>> Yeah.

What a great story.

Okay, I'm going to give you some names here.

Let's start with Mark Plotkin.

>> [ Chuckles ] My late friend Mark Plotkin is the one who talked me into going to WAMU radio, the NPR affiliate here in Washington, DC.

I used to do a show on WHUT called "Evening Exchange."

>> "Evening Exchange."

>> On Fridays on "Evening Exchange", we would do something called the Weekly News Analysis.

I had gone to a Democratic National Convention in 1988, and Atlanta, Georgia, and a guy who used to work at WHUR as a news editor named Bill Christian introduced me to a guy he knew named Mark Plotkin.

And both Mark Plotkin and I were doing analysis for WHUR Radio while we were at this convention in 1988.

And that's how I got to know Mark Plotkin at first.

Then I started inviting him as a guest on our weekly news analysis, because he was a news analyst at WAMU Radio.

And then one day, I got a call from him and he said Derek McGinty, another WHUR alumnus, was leaving WAMU radio and Mark Plotkin wanted to recruit me as a host for the Politics Hour broadcast on WAMU.

Long story short, I eventually took that job.

That's how I ended up also working at WAMU.

But Mark Plotkin and I became very, very close friends, and one of the reasons we became close friends was because of our mutual love of basketball.

And he started taking me to George Washington University basketball games.

I started taking him to American University basketball games.

But he was such a character in my life because he never described himself as a celebrity or a well-known person.

He used to describe himself as "a major peripheral figure."

[ Laughter ] And I know that he knew you very well, also.

But Mark Plotkin is the person who helped me to renew my radio career, and he was quite the character.

>> Let me go to the street.

We talked about Chapin Street.

But let me go to the street.

Rayful Edmond.

>> My sons knew Rayful Edmond.

I didn't.

Because my sons were growing up in Shaw.

And they were students at Dunbar High School.

And when they were going to school.

Fortunately, they were twins.

But they never got jumped because coming out, we lived a block away from the Lincoln Westmorland public housing apartments, and there was a crew that operated out of those apartments in those days called the Rambo Crew.

And when my sons were on their way to Dunbar, they never got jumped because anytime somebody tried to jump them, somebody would say, "Unh-unh."

They were the Rambo Crew.

>> Rambo boys, yeah.

>> Well, Rayful Edmond used to sponsor -- Rayful Edmond, for people who will not know it, was eventually incarcerated as being the head of a major cocaine trafficking organization in Washington.

But that's not how young black men in Washington knew Rayful Edmond exclusively.

He sponsored basketball tournaments for young men around the city.

And my sons were not great players, but they were spectators in those tournaments.

And they knew all about Rayful before I had ever heard of Rayful Edmond.

I only heard about Rayful Edmond officially as a journalist covering this stuff.

But when I asked my kids, they knew him in a completely different way.

>> A bit of a Robin Hood character.

>> Yes.

Exactly right.

>> Someone who also covered the news, he'd been characterized as having major league cool and major league swag, Jim Vance.

>> [ Laughs ] Let me tell you.

That's all true.

Because the first time I ever saw Jim Vance when he was not on television wearing glasses and a suit and tie, I was shocked.

He was wearing a beret.

He wasn't wearing any glasses.

He walked with a certain you know what.

>> Yeah.

>> And the man I replaced on "Evening Exchange" was Bernie McCain.

Bernie McCain was the host on "Evening Exchange."

And one night, I was still working at WHUR Radio, and I'm coming around the corner from WHUR down the street from W -- to get my car, and it's 8:00, and I guess "Evening Exchange", which was hosted by Bernie McCain, had just finished.

And for some reason or the other, he had Randall Robinson and Jim Vance as guests.

And as I come around the corner, Bernie McCain, Jim Vance, and Randall Robinson are doo-wopping in front of what was then WHMM TV.

These three big men, all a little older than I am, I'm like, "What are they doing?"

They are doo-wopping.

Jim Vance was a member of a doo wop group here in DC.

>> Yeah.

>> And so Jim not only had content and charisma, Jim Vance had style.

>> Yeah.

>> He was for very many people a terrific role model here in DC.

>> Yeah.

One of the coolest guys ever.

>> Ever, ever.

>> This next name makes me think of a Shaggy song.

"Bombastic, very fantastic."

>> Yes.

yes.

>> Petey Greene.

>> Oh, man, oh man.

When we first started at The Center For Black Education doing those programs, "Sauti" and "Saa Ya Watoto" and WOL Radio, those programs were part of the public affairs segment, and they aired on Sunday night at 7:00 and 8:00 respectively.

They were followed by Petey Greene's show on WOL, which was arguably the most popular talk show in the city.

>> Unbelievable.

>> Petey was just a natural performer.

And so the first time I ever actually laid eyes on him was when Walter Fauntroy was running for Congress for the first time in 1971.

The Center For Black Education was located at 1435 Fairmont Street Northwest.

Drum and Spear Bookstore was on the corner of 14th and Fairmont Street Northwest.

And Walter Fauntroy was having a meeting, a political meeting, and this tall, light skinned, mustached guy was heckling him relentlessly.

And somebody said, "That's Petey Greene."

>> Yeah.

>> And that's who Petey was.

He was a guy who had so much street cred that everybody listened to what he said on the street, and then everybody listened to him on the radio.

And then one time, he had me as a guest on his television show, which aired on what was then channel 20 in those days.

I had to ride out to Virginia to be on that show, and after he had me on the show, he was recording two or three shows in one night.

The guest for the next show did not show up.

And I said, "Petey, what are you going to do?"

He said, "I'll just talk."

>> Yeah.

>> He said, "I'll just talk."

I said, "I'm staying here for this."

I've never seen -- They turned that camera on, and Petey Greene looked into that camera and talked for half an hour nonstop.

>> Yeah.

>> He was a phenomenon.

>> And that had to be the night that he didn't do how to eat a watermelon.

>> How to eat a watermelon.

No, that was not that night.

But, yes, he could do that.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

We are doing this interview from the studios of WHUT, where for so long you did "The Evening Exchange."

You've talked about that.

You've talked about your sons coming here.

What do you have to say to those people looking who watched you on "The Evening Exchange" and what it all meant to you all of those years?

>> Having worked prior to that at WHUR radio, I think I was fairly well known among listeners to the radio station.

I think my exposure on television, and that was the first time I had ever been on television.

My exposure on television exposed me in a significantly different way.

For the first time, people were able to know what I looked like, and for the first time, I was able to learn that what I was doing on radio would not necessarily translate very well into television, because television is a visual medium.

So the first thing I had to learn how to do was how to dress properly because people will talk about you if you're not properly dressed.

And I realized that television interviews had to be much more lively than radio interviews because people were watching, and a lot of times, they weren't listening as closely as they were watching.

But that exposure created a whole nother dimension to my life.

And a lot of people did not know that, but WHMM then, and later WHUT, had a significant white viewership... >> Sure.

>> ...at the time who watched that program, and it exposed me to a whole different life that the one I had been used to in radio.

The good thing about it for me was that then it was live.

And so, like radio, I didn't have a chance to really get nervous doing it.

They turned on the camera, and that was it.

We used to take phone calls.

I had to reach back to get the telephone lines on it.

But that for me meant a lot of people began to not only know what I looked like, but began to listen to what we were actually saying.

I always say to people that to this day, when I'm out in public, a lot of black people say to me, "Kojo, are you still working in media?"

>> Yes.

>> And they recognize me by my face.

But since I've been at public radio, white people recognize me by my voice.

>> Yes, yes, yes.

>> A lot of them don't know my face.

But most black people still recognize me by looking at me.

>> Before I throw the next name, we want to show a clip here.

>> You went on to three terms as mayor, and your old SNCC colleague, Frank Smith, who later joined you on the city council, told me that what you created was the Barry revolution.

And you mentioned before being a revolutionary before you came on to the city council, and what he described as the Barry revolution, what some people say created Prince George's County as we know it today, was the fact that you changed contracting, the way it had been done before you came into office in Washington, DC, and allowed African Americans to get in on it.

Was that a significant part of the Barry revolution?

>> I believe that you can use political power to get economic power.

That's how all other groups in this country.

Go to Boston, the Irish.

Go to Chicago, the Italians and the Poles and everybody.

They use political power to get economic power.

And so I said, "I have the political power.

I have the support of the council to change the contracting laws."

When I came in office, only 3% of all that money was going to African-American people.

>> Folks who have lived in Washington, DC, proudly say, "He is our mayor for life."

It's a DC thing.

You just don't understand.

Talk to us about, you spent this is 50 years, 40 of which Marion was maybe the central figure in Washington, DC.

>> And had absolutely persuaded himself that he made my career.

>> Absolutely.

>> [ Laughs ] >> And yours and everybody else that you know.

>> [ Laughs ] Exactly right.

And you cannot separate Washington, DC, from Marion Barry.

Just so people will know what I'm talking about, when he said he made my career, the highest ratings that "Evening Exchange" ever got was when Marion Barry decided that he was not going to run for reelection, and he decided to make that announcement on "Evening Exchange."

It was the highest rating we ever got, and the first time that television and newspaper and other reporters were standing outside the doors of WHUT TV waiting to interview Marion Barry.

But he did it here, and he did it here first.

And that's why he always told me he made my career.

But you cannot separate Washington, DC, from Marion Barry precisely because of what he was saying during the course of that interview.

A lot of people do not know that when Marion Barry ran for office after having served a term as an at large member of the DC Council, his opponent in that race was the chairman of the DC Council, Sterling Tucker.

And Sterling Tucker was much more the establishment politician in Washington than was Marion Barry, even though Barry had served both on the school board and on the council.

However, when Marion Barry was running, this dashiki clad former black militant was endorsed three times by the Washington Post in that election.

And so a lot of people felt that Marion Barry was the white liberal choice for candidate because white liberals felt it was fashionable to elect somebody who was associated with black power as the mayor.

But Marion Barry clearly understood what his mission as mayor was supposed to be, and his mission as mayor was to transform the entire leadership of the city and to transform the way the city did business, and to transform what occurred for the youth of this city.

And he was able to accomplish all of those things.

And during the course of accomplishing those things, he alienated a whole lot of very powerful and wealthy, mostly white people in Washington, DC.

But by that time, he had grown to be the heart and soul of the African-American community, and there was no way that he could be removed.

And it was well known that, as he said one time, "People can say a lot about Marion Barry and women, people can say a lot about Marion drugs, people can never say anything about Marion Barry and money."

Because everybody knew that he was not into wealth and stealing money so they could never get him with stealing any money.

So they got him the way they did.

You know, a lot of people say about how charismatic Marion Barry was, and, as a result, people who don't know him think that they thought he was charismatic because, like oh, Jesse Jackson or Barack Obama, he was a great speaker.

No, Marion Barry's charisma did not lie in his speech.

His charisma came from his actions.

>> Yeah.

>> His charisma came from what he could do when he walked into a room.

And by the way, he always walked in late.

[ Laughter ] >> That was mandatory.

>> When he walked into a room, he influenced the room in ways that you couldn't really easily see.

>> Yeah.

>> But that was where his charisma lie.

>> Yeah.

Kojo, thank you so much for joining us.

>> Love you being here.

>> Always a pleasure, my brother.

Always a pleasure.

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For more information on this program or any other program, please visit our website at whut.org.

Thank you.