- Will you consider this, just about every morning for three decades, you would see his face and hear his voice.

He'd bring you up to date, on what was going on around town and, through in his own brand of humor.

However, you may have lost track of him in the past three years.

(upbeat music) He doesn't bob and weave, but he does a little of everything and connects with today's issues.

Gary Morris, is an entrepreneur, and he's an inspired writer, a storyteller, producer, radio host, drummer, and all around get it done, kind of guy.

I'm Christine Zak-Edmonds, and help me welcome my friend G Mo.

Gary Moore how in the world are you?

- I'm great and it's great to be here, its great to see you.

- Yeah, fist bump, I forgot that.

- Yeah, you gotta blow it up at the end.

- Yeah, 'cause you're supposed to "psshh".

- Right, exactly.

- Yeah, yeah.

But you're good, you're good.

- I'm getting there.

- I've got grandchildren now teaching me this.

Okay so, I mean, what have you been doing the past three years?

I named things, but not specifically.

- I have been on what some people call, a cultural crusade.

Somebody told me that, that's what I was doing.

So I kind of liked it, and I said, yeah, I could get with that.

So I, as you mentioned, I've been doing a lot of everything.

I think the main thing that I'm doing now, is the radio thing.

I started out in radio.

You know that, before I got into television, I was in radio for five, six years.

- Correct, right out of college.

- At WXCL a country, western radio station.

- [Christine] Which was um, a dichotomy.

- Yes, it was.

And way back then, a lot of people may not know, but radio stations were required to have a minimum percentage of news and public affairs.

- [Christine] Right.

- And so I really cut my teeth in radio and in the business on news and public affairs, it's just a part of my DNA.

And so it's no surprise that now in these later years, one of the main things that I do for our radio station, WPNV is news and public affairs.

We have four public affairs shows and try to keep people updated.

The call letters we're Peoria's neighborhood voice, - [Christine] Right - really hearkened back to just giving people information and trying to fill an information void.

- Right and well, you have that and you have some good music on it that you offer.

- Yeah, that's a interesting thing nowadays.

And I don't wanna sound like a prude, but we play, kind of a toss salad of music genres.

Like you'll hear some earth, wind and fire.

You'll hear some, uh - [Christine] Hip hop.

- Hip hop, some Whitney, some, you know?

So it's a little bit of everything.

But of the new music that we play, I would say about 90% of it, I have to edit, because of the profanity.

And so that, and that's something we can talk about a little later, but yeah, I'm doing the radio thing.

I'm still doing the storytelling, was just up in Chicago and did a nice storytelling gig there.

We still have the Summer Drummers.

The Summer Drummers is a group comprised of, the percussionists that you see in the bands around town.

So when you go see Dexter O'Neil in the Funk Yard, you'll see this guy playing congas and that's Keith Boswell.

So he's a member of the Summer Drummers.

Or when you go see the Brazilianaires, you see this guy playing congas and percussion, hand percussion, and that's Jose Rayez.

And he's a part of the Summer Drummers.

And Myra Johnson.

- So you collected them all?

you gathered them all.

- I gathered them all and we went into the basement and we pride ourselves on trying to preserve that art form, African hand drumming and how to take care of your instrument, traditional African drum patterns.

And so when you see them play, they're playing with a lot of integrity.

And so we get together every once in a while, we get together as a group, besides their paying gigs.

- In the basement or in the garage or?

- Wherever.

- Wherever you can.

- And sometimes we play, But we just recently played for the Juneteenth celebration at Gwen Park and opened that.

And it was good, because we hadn't played in like about a year because of COVID.

- [Christine] Right.

- You know, COVID put a lot of things- - So this was a jam session?

Did you have to practice for it or you just kind of got together and said, hey, here we go?

- Yeah, we didn't practice beforehand.

- Okay 5, 6, 7, 8.

- [Gary] Boom let's go.

- (laughing) - So yeah, doing that.

And you're familiar with the theater things.

- Right, yeah you've directed A Raisin in the Sun.

- I did, a couple of times.

- By Peoria Players Yeah, I did it at Bradley in 2013.

And there was a spy in the audience who was watching from Players, and they recruited me to do A Raisin in the Sun at Players.

And A Raisin in the Sun in 2020 was the last play, at Players - Before everything went dark.

- before the governor shut everything down.

And I feel for Players cause you know, it's a great venue.

It's historic.

Folks there are excellent, very supportive of, you know, everything we do.

We had a successful run there and I'm glad to see that they're opening back up.

- Right, everything, which is very fortunate.

So, okay.

So, that kind of takes us into COVID.

What were you doing during COVID?

- I was trying to stay away from people.

(both laugh) - Okay.

- Wear my mask, and can keep social distance.

And when the vaccine came out, you know, I got sick, in the winter of 2019 in December, I was in the hospital.

- [Christine] Oh, I didn't know that.

- And it was diagnosed as pneumonia.

- [Christine] Right.

- And I had something that the doctor called costochondritis, which was an inflammation of the tissue in between your rib cage.

Sounds painful, it was.

- Like pleurisy or something.

- And I was on the floor in a fetal position in, - It hurt so bad?

- in the prompt care.

- (gasps) - My wife was there with me and I'm yelling for help.

I mean, it was that bad.

The pain was that bad.

Now you, this is kind of a funny moment, that you can relate to.

Because there were other people, in the prompt care and they were seeing me and they were like, "Hey, you're the guy on the news.

I watch you every morning."

- (laughing) - And I'm dying.

So, - But it was so sweet that they remembered you, - Yeah.

- especially in agony like that.

- Right, his last words were, thank you.

So, no, and during COVID our radio station really doubled down on getting the message out.

Because, in the African-American community, as you know, there was a lot of skepticism regarding the vaccine, based on - Even the illness, right?

- Well, based on this country's history of medical negligence and what, there's even a book called medical apartheid.

The Tuskegee experiment, - [Christine] Right, um-hm.

- The Henrietta Lacks story.

I mean all these sad chapters in American history where African-Americans were, - [Christine] abused - abused and so, - [Christine] Right.

- the skepticism was warranted, and so, how do you reconcile that - [Christine] Balance, that right.

- You know, it's like, okay, I hear what you're saying about the skepticism, but, and so what I tell people would be that, African-Americans have never had good choices.

Do you jump off the slave ship or do you stay on, you know.

Do you run away with Harriet, you know, into the unknown or do you stay on the plantation?

You know, the white guy pinches your wife's, you know, - [Christine] Bottom.

(laughs) - bottom, do you punch him and get lynched or do you take it?

You know, I mean it's so it's never been good choices.

Now, you have, do I take this, take this vaccine, even though we have this history of abuse.

- [Christine] Right.

- Or do I risk getting COVID okay.

- So what was your success rate or do you have any idea?

- Um, A lot of young people unfortunately are on social media now.

We were, I think, fortunate to be in an era where, - it wasn't constant.

- Right, I think - (laughs) - you know what I'm going to say.

- Right, exactly.

- Well, our news was vetted, you know, - Mm-hmm - and we, going back to what I was saying earlier about like the, the old radio days, in addition to radio stations, having to have a minimum percentage of news and public affairs, we had to have what was also called the fairness doctrine, - Mm-hmm - where if you were interviewing me and I was a Republican, you were, "obligated", morally, to go out and get the other side.

- [Christine] Right, right.

- And that was eliminated, you know?

And, so nowadays with social media, there are positives with the, what do they call it?

The democratization of media.

- [Christine] Mm-hmm Everybody has a show.

Everybody has a podcast.

- Everybody's got an opinion.

- Everybody, you know, and it's like, I can't, you know, there are people who come to the radio station, I do an interview with them and then they'll leave and say a, hey, let me take some pictures for my podcast.

Or do you - [Christine] (laughs) - want to be on my podcast?

- [Christine] Okay - And so there's beauty to that because it's giving more voices to people.

- [Christine] But, - But on the flip side of that, it's not vetted.

- They're not responsible.

Not vetted in the way that we were.

And we had, we had editors and we had, you know, as a young television reporter, when I would submit my script, Christine Zak would mark it up and you know, that kind of thing.

And so, that's not happening.

And a lot of the information about COVID unfortunately, was - [Christine] Skewed.

- disseminated in social media and, and people were talking about, they're going to put a chip in me.

It's going to alter my DNA, it's going to change me to a monkey.

They're going to follow me through 5G.

And you know, there's a lot of stuff out there, - Right - [Gary] that was, - And well, - [Gary] bogus.

- But even now, well, we don't even know what is true anymore, but let's get away from that subject, because, we just don't know.

Okay.

- [Garry] Yeah So you were a teacher for a while, but you still are a teacher in your own many different ways.

So tell me about that.

- I was a teacher, and I lived to tell about it.

- [Christine] (laughs) Okay Actually when I retired, somebody suggested that I sign up for a sub in Peoria public schools, because they have a dearth of not just African-American teachers, but particularly African-American male teachers.

- [Christine] Mm hm.

- And the fact that I had been in the schools for years anyway, as a storyteller and a cultural arts presenter, - [Christine] Natural.

- I was familiar with students, - [Christine] Right.

and I had my own curriculum and black history curriculum and stuff like that.

Just as a side note with that.

And you know this too.

Unfortunately, a lot of times when I would do, cultural arts presentations in the schools, particularly during black history month, I would go to a school and the whole school would come out for an assembly and I'd perform and do stories and engage the kids and stuff like that.

And people would like it.

And, but I was like the only thing that they would have - [Christine] Right.

for black history month.

- Which is, a big void.

- Yeah.

And so I'm, I'm glad to learn that period.

Public schools recently adopted this, Black History 365 curriculum, where African-American history is being taught all year round as a part of the general history curriculum.

- [Christine] Rather than in February.

- Rather than in February.

- [Christine] Right But with Zack, I mean, I had teachers, I would do a presentation and I'd be packing up leaving and, you know, high-fiving people and kids and a teacher would come up to me.

- [Christine] And say, "I didn't know that."

- I didn't know, Thomas Jefferson had slaves or I didn't know, Johanna.

And I would be like, yee.

Okay, so when they asked me to do it, then I was like, sure, I'm there.

And so one of the assignments that I had, was to teach fourth grade at Lincoln.

And it was only for like two or three days.

And so I signed up and I did it and it was fun.

And then that weekend I looked on the district's website and I saw Lincoln again for like a week or two.

And I was like, okay, well, let me sign up.

And then I went in that Monday, the principal said, Hey, our teacher is out with a back surgery for like the rest of the year.

And if you want to be the fourth grade teacher, you can.

So I, I was like - [Christine] You did.

- a fourth grade teacher.

- [Christine] (laughs) That's scary.

And those kids are still okay?

(both laugh) Just checking.

- As a matter of fact, one of the young ladies, I forget her name, forgive me.

One of the young ladies in my class, this little girl was always reading.

You know, she'd get through, you know, Mr. Morgan, can I read another book, you know, can I read another?

She ended up leading the district, the whole district.

Fourth grade, I'm talking about the seventh graders, eighth graders, high school, whatever.

She was the top reader for the, for the district.

- [Christine] Really?

- Now she was doing that before I came, - Okay, So you weren't her inspiration - but I claim her - I would do that if I were you.

So you know, and in so teaching, so, - [Gary] Can I drink this?

- Yes, please do.

- [Gary] Okay, thanks.

What is this?

- It's H2O.

- Oh, H...

Okay.

All right.

That's good.

Did you get the joke about H2O?

- No.

Okay.

So, the scientist goes into the bar and says, you know, I'll have an H2O.

Okay.

And then the other guy comes behind him and says, I'll have an H2O too.

And the other guy dies, because H2O2 is, yeah.

- Is not good.

Okay.

All right.

I'm glad you told me that, go ahead.

Drink.

So your research, how do you start your research for your different projects?

I mean, just things that you knew all the long or a little curious, or somebody put a little bug in your ear.

- So a combination of all of that, when I was in high school - [Christine] In Chicago.

- in Chicago, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, - [Christine] Okay, yeah.

- I was studying to be an electrician.

I was at a, in a vocational school and the electric shop teacher had an apprentice.

He was a African-American apprentice and he would turn the classroom over to him, and say, all right, you know, now Mr. Wade will, you know, take it over from here.

And then he would leave and, and go down the hall.

And the apprentice would look down the hall, shut the door, lock the door, and then come back and teach us black history.

- Hmm, interesting.

Well, and that was like you said, in the dark ages.

And so that lit your light bulb for you.

- Yeah.

And you know, I grew up in an era where you had the civil rights.

You know, I was still alive when Dr. King was killed.

I mean, I was 10 years old and my brothers in Chicago, you know, where we grew up, you know, we were on 45th street, the Blackstone Rangers were on 47th and the Disciples were on 43rd.

And there was a time when a lot of the street gangs turned.

They were turning away from the street gangs and turning to the black Panthers, and the - In the Sixties?

in the late sixties.

- Right.

Mhmm.

- And the, the idea was that, why are we killing each other and beating up on each other when we should turn our attention to the white man, right.

And that movie, blue, uh, Judas and the Black Messiah, - [Christine] Right, mhmm.

you know, kind of deals with some of that.

- [Christine] Correct The FBI and Hoover and Chicago police, the whole idea was to, in their words, keep the head from connecting to that body.

They didn't want this "black intelligentsia" connecting with those - [Christine] The People.

Restless - [Christine] Right.

young people with all this energy.

Right?

- [Christine] Right, understood.

And so you had COINTELPRO.

And all of that.

And so I grew up as a young guy with a lot of that information.

- [Christine] Mhmm.

And so my brothers were always bringing in books about this.

I mean, listening to the last poets, you know, it's a radical group that played congas and did poetry.

- How did you not join a gang?

You had a strong mother.

I know that.

- Mom, Dad, worked two jobs.

And my brothers, you know, my brother, Billy was, you know, the enforcer.

I mean, he drove me down to Bradley.

He looked at, when I was in high school, looked at my grades and saw that I was getting A's in physics and stuff.

And then he would come in and quiz me, you know?

And where's your homework and this kind of thing.

I mean, so they were really, and, you know, we grew up also up in a era where, by virtue of the fact that we had the civil rights movement and, and affirmative action, doors were open.

And, and then it was, you go out there and show them, you know, that was kind of the thing, you know, we have the talent, and, - [Christine] And the brains, - And there are opportunities.

- And everything, ability.

- So you know, go out there and, - [Christine] And do it.

and show them what you could do.

And so, yeah, my brother, Billy drove me to Bradley.

He passed away since.

And so, yeah, I think that was the, the main reason was strong, and my parents were old enough to be my grandparents.

I was the youngest of eight.

And, you know, I used to joke with my mother.

- [Christine] That you weren't planned.

That I (laughs) - I did the same thing, with my mother - (laughs) You know, - Same thing.

She had me when she was 42.

Right.

And so I had brothers who were old enough to be my father.

- [Christine] Yeah.

And I had a sister, same thing.

- And then a niece and nephew, who were like the same age as me, or, - Yeah, yeah - and so they had their own history when they talked about their grandparents, they're going back into the, you know, close to the 1800's.

- [Christine] Correct.

And so they would tell me stories.

I mean, my father telling me stories about how, when he was, growing up in Tennessee, you know, he's walking to school and, you know, we joke about, yeah, I had to walk a mile to school.

- [Christine] Uphill both ways.

- But it was, it was for real.

You know, for him and he's walking to school and he smells something.

And as he gets, you know, closer, the smell is strong and he looks up and there's a man who was lynched.

- [Christine] Mm.

And the word was, we're not going to cut him down because we want to send a message to... - [Christine] Set an example.

And so now think about it.

We don't have, they didn't have trauma dogs or - [Christine] PTSD or anything - people coming in to talk to him.

You know, so he just - [Christine] Just have to deal with it.

- growing up as a little boy, dealing with that.

- [Christine] Yeah.

Yeah.

- He got beat up in Cicero, by white guys who came into the cleaners that he was working in.

My mother worked in a restaurant in Chicago and one day her husband, my father came in to see her and, you know, to share some information.

Then left out and then the manager comes to her and says, you know, - [Christine] Saying, it can't happen.

- Well, he can't come in the front door, - [Christine] Oh my.

- he needs to come in the back, you know, that kind of thing.

And so I, I, you know, I was the baby, right?

- [Christine] Mhmm.

And so I absorbed all of that - [Christine] All of it, right.

from them and from my brothers.

And then from Mr. Wade, you know, in high school teaching us African-American history.

- [Christine] Right.

- So when I came into Bradley and majored in communications, you know, George Armstrong snapped me up.

- [Christine] Took you under his wing, right?

- To be part of the speech team.

And taught me a lot.

I mean, you know, I'm really grateful for that - Well, you're teaching people, a lot of things.

Let's talk about Beltman.

I know that you know him pretty well.

- I do, well, I, I do, but I don't, - [Christine] But you've never sagged?

- I've never sagged my pants.

No, no.

- Okay.

I've never sagged my pants.

And yeah, I am familiar with Beltman.

I've done a lot of research.

I've seen his stuff.

I had one of his cards, you know, "show your mind, not to behind", all of that.

You know?

So Beltman, is a superhero - [Christine] Yeah, he is.

that has a giant B on his chest.

And he goes around, lifting up guy's pants who sag.

And his whole thing is, you know, as you lift up your pants, you're lifting up your self esteem, you know, Beltman's theory, is that a lot of these guys who sag, um, - [Christine] They have no idea, where that even came from.

That too, - [Christine] Mhmm and that they perhaps lack self-esteem because if you had self-esteem, you wouldn't show your underwear.

And so belt man's arch enemy is, Tush, the Terrible.

Okay.

- [Christine] Okay.

Mhmm And so he, he goes after Tush, the Terrible.

But no, I'm, I'm upset with Beltman.

And I'm glad you brought him up.

- [Christine] Why?

- Because I have been wanting to interview Beltman for the radio, - [Christine] And he's let you down?

for the, I've never, I haven't even seen him.

I'll come to an event.

It's like, somebody will call me and say, "Hey, Beltman is at this event."

And then I'll come there and then , "Oh, he just left," or, - [Christine] Really?

you know, that kind of thing.

And so I've never been in the same place as he has been with him.

- Well, we don't have a whole lot of time, yet, really quickly, tell me about the minority business development center, right next to the radio station.

- Right?

And, so, well, the radio station is inside the minority business development center and the minority business development center is the brainchild of Denise Moore.

And it really got started, oh, man, I want to say 17, 18 years ago when we were living in Bloomington and we had a store, our store was called Moore Cultural Expressions.

It was the largest African-American gift store in, - [Christine] Outside of, - outside of Chicago.

- Chicago.

- And people would come into the store and they would say, oh, wow, this is really nice.

This is really great.

You know, when are they going to open up a black restaurant?

Or when are they going to have a black nightclub?

And then we would kind of look at each other and wink and say, you know, who are they?

You know, when are they going to open this and this?

And so to demystify business ownership, Denise started the Black Business Alliance and teaching people how to open a business, how to write a business plan, how to find a location, how to get financing, how to market your business.

- Right.

- And we have the incubator at the minority business development center.

And then we kick them out of the nest and hope that they fly.

Right?

A lot of success stories, how to apply for grants, you know, during COVID, we talked about that earlier.

One of the things, unfortunately, that happened was when the federal government came along and said, Hey, here's money for businesses.

- [Christine] Mhmm A lot of African-American businesses didn't get any because, - Because they didn't apply?

- well, partly because some of them were operating what we call underground.

And so they were paying their employees with cash, instead of doing the W-9 they weren't doing the taxes, they were buying equipment, like with cash.

- [Christine] Right.

And you might think on the surface, oh, that's a good thing.

It's just, you know, a refrigerator costs $1,200 and you just pay it and you don't have any debt.

- [Christine] Right.

But actually you want to establish some relationship - [Christine] Some kind of line of credit - with the bank, - Right.

- and, and you know, that kind of thing.

And so we teach that, also.

So yeah.

I'm glad you asked about that because we're at 2139 Southwest Adams, in what used to be the old Ben Franklin, catty-corner from Bishop Chris's church, which used to be the old Zoels.

- [Christine] Mhmm - And this may sound political - Yeah, kind of right at that intersection.

- Yeah.

May sound political.

But the, the future of the city, really is in the redevelopment of the south side and the warehouse district.

I mean, the city is pretty much developed as much as it's going to in the Northwest corridor.

I mean, you go out to the Hi-Vee and the Louisville Slugger place and the Methodist, and the next thing you see is a cornfield, - [Christine] Mhmm and they're not going to annex - [Christine] Get that up.

Just finally cut a tree.

- Yeah, and so a lot of people are taking those old buildings with good bones and repurposing them.

And that's what we did.

- We've got one minute.

Got to see the drum.

- We have one... Oh yeah, I did, oh yeah, I did bring my drum.

- Tell me about it.

- I didn't want to leave it outside.

- Okay, no, I don't blame you.

But look at that, this beauty.

- Okay, so, yeah.

- Yeah.

Yep, yep.

Yep.

So this is a gin bay drum, and it's what I play.

(bangs drum) A quick lesson.

- Okay.

- Bass.

(bangs drum) Tone.

(bangs drum) Slap.

(bangs drum) (bangs drum) Everything you do is going to require those, those three things.

- [Christine] Okay.

- How's Zack?

- My son, Zack - Your son Zack, is fine because you called me Zach earlier, but that's okay.

- (laughs) - He's fine.

Children, grandchildren.

So it's all good.

- And the only reason why I ask is because he was in Black to the Future.

- He was in black to the future when he was a little boy and then was in the, the, the remake iteration later when he was a grown man.

- So, we have to have you back because you have to tell us a story.

We're going to give you a 10 minute window for a story.

- Okay.

- And now that we know what you're up to, I've got your number, buddy.

I do.

- You do, you do.

Thank you for having me - [Christine] Thank you.

and thanks for sharing.

So, yeah.

- And I'm sure that the audience is very happy to catch up with you and know a little bit more about you on the personal side.

So thanks my friend.

I'll remember the, "pssshh" this time.

All right.

I hope that you enjoyed this interview with G.MO Gary Moore, Mo drum, and a, you all enjoy yourselves, stay safe and healthy.

(upbeat music)