Podcasts

Murv Seymour:
Dr. Gee, thank you for joining us.

Rev. Alex Gee:
It’s really good to be able to sit down and talk with you again.

Murv Seymour:
Always a pleasure. So, let’s talk a little bit about — we know that Nehemiah has its arms in all kinds of different things. Let’s talk a little bit about Justified Anger.

Rev. Alex Gee:
All right, let’s go.

Murv Seymour:
How did it start?

Rev. Alex Gee:
I was minding my own business, driving to a prayer gathering right in this space. Pulled up right outside the front doors and two police cars pulled me over. Said that they were looking for a red car — mine’s black — and they’re looking for a car that was going the wrong way down Fisher Street. I grew up on Fisher Street. And I’d just left there, visiting my mom. I said, “Fisher Street’s a two-way street. What do you mean, the wrong way? And my car’s obviously not red.”

That experience — and let me just add, my associate pastor, who’s white, was in the parking lot when I pulled up. I hired him. I sign his payroll check. He got out of his car to come and make sure that nothing weird was going on. Not once did they say, “Get back in the car. Who are you? Show me ID.” But they asked him to corroborate my story, ’cause they wanted to know what I was doing here. And I’m the longest-serving pastor in this community.

Murv Seymour:
So you were profiled, basically?

Rev. Alex Gee:
I was profiled, in my own church parking lot.

Murv Seymour:
Wow.

Rev. Alex Gee:
If they wanted to know what I was doing here, why didn’t they want to know what my white associate pastor was doing here? He was sitting in the parking lot first. It was an evening, it was dark. He was the first car. I pulled up, was the second car. And then two police cars pulled up behind me. Even when he got out of his car, they never said, “Sir, who are you? What are you doing here? Show us ID.” I looked in my rearview mirror and saw him standing back here, talking to the police officers while they asked him to corroborate my story. “Is he who he said he is?” I had to drop the name of three police officers who were part of this congregation at the time. I had to name drop to have them let me go.

Between that and the event at Rotary, where I talked about the bleak realities of mass incarceration, a woman thanked me for not being an angry Black man.

Murv Seymour:
How’d you take that?

Rev. Alex Gee:
I said, “Well, why would you think I’m not angry, ma’am? I’m very angry.” “Oh, I know, I know, but you’re not angry like some f-ing…” And then she named another Black influencer, pitting us against each other. I said, “I’m angry just like him.”

After that, I found one of my friends, Phil Haslanger, who used to write for Cap Times, and he was a pastor. I said, “I need to tell my story. This crap goes on all the time, and people wouldn’t believe it.” ‘Cause I didn’t believe it until it happened to me. So I penned my response, and Cap Times published it. And it went viral. I wrote it, I think it published December 18. And by the 31, it was the 11th most read story of the year.

Murv Seymour:
So let’s talk about the Cap Times essay that you put together. The headline was: “Alex Gee Says Madison is Failing Its African-American Community.” You feel that was an accurate way to describe it?

Rev. Alex Gee:
Oh, it’s extremely accurate. I knew that my response would ruffle feathers, because who wants to listen to a middle-class, Black male with an advanced degree, living in Fitchburg, talking about racial disparities? I knew that, so I sat on some of these truths for a long time. But after being pulled over by the police the second time, after being profiled the second time and pulled over, and that comment at Rotary, I said, “Remember at the end of New Jack City when Wesley Snipes said, Nino Brown said, ‘If I go down, everybody’s going down.'” I just said, “If I go down, everybody’s going down. I’m going to tell it. I’m going to tell it.” And I just started talking about the experiences.

The accuracy really comes in the fact that we have been voicing these issues for a long time. We’ve been talking about the two-tier system, the parallel realities. And people are like, “No, no, no — Oprah, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan. We don’t see color, Alex. This is Madison. No, come on, just calm down, you’re high-strung.” And I just said, “No, I’m going to talk about these experiences.”

When we bring them up, if action does take place, it’s someone, typically white, going into some spaces and creating solutions and then asking us to rubber stamp them. I said, “In order to really address these issues, we have to address them. We have to tell the stories. And we have to invite others, when we’re ready, to be a part of that solution. But we need to design them ourselves.”

I wanted the letter to kick off the reality that not only are we experiencing the disparities, we are invited to the tables very late to address them. And we needed to change that. So that’s really what I meant when I said that Madison was not treating its Black residents well. It’s because our experiences weren’t being respected.

Murv Seymour:
Correct me if I’m wrong. The name, Justified Anger, that was something that you did not come up with.

Rev. Alex Gee:
Oh, no, no, no, no. No, no, Cap Times came up with that. Now, I like it. I think it’s catchy. But no, no, I didn’t make that up. When they came out to shoot the photo for the story, they said, “Well, can you hold your hands like this?” So, I mean, I wasn’t thinking about it. It was cold outside, and so I kind of folded my arms. When the article came out, a lot of ’em, you know, our Black friends said, “Ooh, Alex, you’re going to get it. They made you look angry. They made you look defiant. You’re going to get it. They’re going to peg you as an angry Black man.” I said, “Well, I am angry, but that doesn’t mean that I’m destructive. And the only thing that I’m dangerous to is the status quo. And so I’m not going to hurt anybody, but I’m going to spill the beans and I’m going to challenge the status quo.”

Murv Seymour:
When we say Justified Anger, what does that mean to you?

Rev. Alex Gee:
It means that even though anger is often a feared emotion, the justification of it, it makes sense. Because if I’m experiencing these issues with what I’ve done in the community and who I am, perhaps other people have been telling the truth also. And if this indeed does happen because of race, then you have every right to be angry. That anger is called for. It gave me space to own that. Now, I would have to tell you, I sat down with a lot of white influencers after that took place and they said, “Alex, can’t we call it justified something else? Can’t we call it justified attitude or justified action? It’s just that anger just sounds so threatening.”

It is a threat. I’m threatened every day. My existence and the existence of those who look like me is threatened every day. Let’s call it what it is. And I refused, I absolutely refused to change it even if they insinuated that my funding would be jeopardized. I wasn’t to be bought. Our pain wasn’t to be bought. And so here it is, 10, 11 years later, and we’re still known for that.

Murv Seymour:
Yeah, and you talked about some of the funders wanting you to change the language on that. Is it something you considered ever? Do you ever worry about coming off sounding too angry?

Rev. Alex Gee:
I am angry.

Murv Seymour:
But do you ever worry about sounding too angry?

Rev. Alex Gee:
No. No, no. In fact, what I told one of the funders is when white men start becoming more angry, perhaps then I can become less angry. So help me carry this anger. But you’re not going to challenge me and my anger, and you’re not going to look at your own lack of courageousness.

There’s a poem that I quoted in the anniversary article of Justified Anger from Augustine of Hippo, a fourth-century theologian and philosopher. He said, “Hope has two beautiful daughters. One is anger and one is courage: Anger at the way things are and courage for the way things can be.” And so anger is a part of hope. You can’t get to hope without anger. Because anger is a catalytic emotion that can cause you to start doing something.

My anger caused me to organize people, train non-Black allies, train Black emerging leaders, speaking my mind, advocating for my community. Anger prompted those issues. People can try to get upset at the vernacular of the word, but let’s take a look at the body of work. Does it justify fear? Does it justify worrying about what my intentions are? Have I not contributed more to the community as an angry Black person than some of the colleagues who are white and calm and very placid in terms of how things were? How’s that working for them? And so, no, I never ever worry about sounding too angry.

Murv Seymour:
Let’s talk about the coursework, Justified Anger coursework. How does the program work?

Rev. Alex Gee:
My undergraduate work was in Afro-American history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I’ve always thought if people understood how we got to where we are in terms of race relations, if they understood the history of systemic racism, let’s just take the name of it out. Let’s just talk about the way the country was built. Let’s look at our history at a non-political, academic perspective. I felt that people, non-Black people, would say, “Wow, I didn’t know that. Really? Hmm, I understand things a lot differently now. Now I know how strategic we must be in dismantling this if people were very strategic in mantling this.”

We thought we’d get maybe 100 people the first class. I think we got 150 with a waiting list. And then the next time, I think we did 250 with a 100-people waiting list. So, eventually, we took it up to 300 people. Then during the pandemic when we put the course online, that first cohort was 1,700 people. We’ve taken nearly 5,000 people through this nine-week, two-hours-a-week course that teaches history from Western African civilization, pre-Transatlantic slave trade through the 1950s and 1960s. It’s just packed out. It has been a very, very powerful tool for helping people to understand how we arrived at this place of a racialized America.

Murv Seymour:
Do you feel like — you mentioned the 5,000 number, which is what you’ve seen in the 10 years now. Do you feel like that number is higher or lower than what you would’ve thought?

Rev. Alex Gee:
Oh, it’s much, much, much, much higher. Because even though I wrote “Justified Anger” in 2013, I don’t think we launched the class until maybe 2017. It took us a couple of years to design it, to work with faculty on campus. But it’s much higher. First of all, I didn’t know that we’d be doing it every year. Just thought, let’s just try. Because hundreds of people were emailing me after I wrote the article asking, “What can I do?” So I thought, let’s create a bar. And if people adhere to this bar, if they come through this nine-week course, then I can have a crew of people, core of people, that I could at least say, “All right, let’s take the next steps in addressing this issue.” But I couldn’t just tell the hundreds of people who have said, “Tell me what to do.” It’s just too much to manage.

But if people went through the course, they show that they’re really interested in educating themselves about the issue. It’s easier to move those people along because they’ve dedicated some commitment. I didn’t know they were going do it again and again and again and again. Now, because it’s going online, people have taken it from coast to coast. People stop me in restaurants and say, “You don’t know me, but I’ve taken your course. This is what’s going on.” People have completed the course. Justice Jill Karofsky has opened doors so that we’ve created opportunities for fellow judges to take a portion of the class. We’ve offered it to corporations, whether it’s Summit Credit Union or American Family Insurance or other major corporations. The University of Wisconsin has actually sent faculty. Elected officials have taken it, CEOs of nonprofits. I don’t think that I imagined how eclectic the group would be, that it would continue for so long, and that we would actually talk about 5,000 graduates with about an 84% completion rate. So the numbers of people who started is actually higher than 5,000. But the 5,000 is the number of those who completed it.

Murv Seymour:
What’s the demographic of the person who goes? What’s their race, gender and what kind of work are they involved in?

Rev. Alex Gee:
It was designed for white allies, for people who wanted to be white allies primarily. We saw other groups coming as well. But it was really designed for the larger population, for the dominant population here in Madison.

Murv Seymour:
When you say ally, what do you mean by ally?

Rev. Alex Gee:
Well, actually, we referred to folks who were interested in helping as would-be allies. Because we found that the term “ally” was thrown around too easily. Because anyone who felt sympathetic about these issues called themselves an ally. But it didn’t convict them enough to vote in a way that would help the issues, donate in a way that would help the issues, show up and affiliate themselves with these organizations. But we needed more than just sympathy. We needed people to really align. Allies put themselves in harm’s way. They don’t wait for me to address an issue or their Black friends. They’ll say, “Excuse me, that’s offensive, what you just said.” Or in their own places and spheres of work, “I thought we said we were going to wait for a diverse pool. I thought that we were — why is this committee so monolithic?” They would ask their own questions. And so that’s what allies do.

We created this training for people who wanted to become allies. We didn’t just assume people were allies because they felt sorry about the issues. The demographic early on, it’s probably white Madisonians who were in their 60s or close to retirement age. Many of them had an advanced degree. They were really considered to be educated people who knew nothing to very little of real U.S. history. Never heard of the Harlem Renaissance. Did not know about Reconstruction. They did not understand a lot of these things that were just everyday knowledge in certain groups of people. It caused them to question, “Who messed with my educational process that I can have an advanced degree, an intelligent individual, and there’s a whole segment of American history — not Black history — of American history that we never heard about?”

I used a quote by James Baldwin that he wrote for The New Yorker in 1964, I think. I’ll paraphrase it. He said, “To the extent that white America doesn’t understand the history of Black people in America, they do not understand themselves.” I found that to play out incredibly true. Many people signed up for the class thinking, “We want to learn what happened to our Black brothers and sisters.” After the third or fourth session, they said, “Wait, wait.” ‘Cause they could go home and Google it and say, “This is real, this really did happen. The Harlem Renaissance is really a thing. How could I have not been told anything about it?”

So then it caused them to question their own educational experience and processes. When that happened, gloves off. They were ready to say, “OK, we’re going to dive in because we understand that you weren’t told about your history. But we didn’t know that we weren’t told about ours. And why was that? And how did that make us party to the systemic racism that would happen in this country?” It’s a very powerful moment when that takes place. And that takes place with every cohort around the fourth lecture.

Murv Seymour:
I remember reading that you put this together to better race relations here in Madison. Why not put something together to better race relations throughout the entire state of Wisconsin?

Rev. Alex Gee:
You know, you have to understand your market and your reach. Sometimes, I think we’ve missed an opportunity to do good by trying to do too much. I have credibility here. I’ve invested here. I’ve been raised here. And I knew that I could pull off things and I could gather people. I had a reputation here. But I also felt that if this became established enough, we could then spread it throughout the state. But I’ve learned to really start locally and begin to move out. So I just wanted to be cautious and to think this through.

I love now that it is statewide and that people are taking it from all over the country. But the idea was, let’s just make sure that we take care of the would-be allies in Madison who need some type of threshold to cross to say, “Now I want to be taken seriously. I want to be invested in because I want to be part of the change.” And we could do that locally. I couldn’t do that statewide at that time.

Murv Seymour:
I understand also a big part of the effort in Justified Anger is not just to educate about Black history, it’s also about letting white residents learn about themselves.

Rev. Alex Gee:
Oh, oh, definitely. Because learning about Black history won’t change anything. Learning about themselves will change everything.

Murv Seymour:
What do they learn?

Rev. Alex Gee:
They learn what’s really meant by the term white privilege, that that’s not just a moniker. That’s not just throwing off on people. They learn that they’re not really white — they’re German, they’re Italian, they’re British, they’re French, they’re Scandinavian. And then they have to ask, “Well, why don’t we celebrate that?” And we tell them, “Your grandmothers did. Your great-grandfather celebrated it.” If you tell me the ethnic background, I can almost tell you how they may have celebrated. Tell me what they ate, and I can tell you how they celebrated it.

So then they have to ask themselves, “Well then, why did we stop being German? Why did we stop being Irish?” Because you were given the option not only to be white, which was to be American, but to not be Black. So that no matter what they, the country, put on you, as a white person, you could always say, “At least I’m not Black.” You could vote, you could go into theaters, you could marry. You had all these rights that Black people didn’t. All you had to do was to wear the team jersey of whiteness and kind of throw away your own little separate cultural identity that might separate us. Meanwhile, Black people were holding onto their Blackness. You remember the scene in Roots where they were trying to tell Kunta Kinte that his name was Toby. And he wouldn’t say it because all he had was his name, his Blackness, his culture, his family, his God. And they kept saying, “What’s your name?” And they could not get him to say Toby. We were holding to our heritage.

White America was selling theirs for the American dream, for American capitalism, to be accepted. Then that completely polarized the country between Black and white, or white and other. When people learned that, they realized that once you dichotomize people that way, once you polarize ’em that way, you can put them at odds around anything — separate them in how they live and then they never come together so that we never work together. We don’t create solutions together. Without even realizing it, we’ve been made to be the enemies of each other and fearful of each other.

When they realized that that was strategically designed, they were pissed. Our participants were pissed. Because they just didn’t know. They had been thinking, “Why can’t you just be American, Murv? Alex, why can’t you just be American?” We’ve been trying to be American for 500 years, but we couldn’t. And it wasn’t because we didn’t work as hard as you all or think as hard as you all or run as fast as you all. There were other reasons that kept us from being American. I think by now, we know what those reasons were. That reality causes those who are watching closely to think, “If I don’t do something, I’m part of the problem.” That’s what the course taught. Either you become a part of the solution or you are the problem.

Murv, if I may say this, I think that this is very important. We presented to the Wisconsin Partnership Program the idea, we gave their data back to them. Departments of public health have found that racism has become a social determinant of health, that if people of color, and I’ll speak specifically about my background — as a Black person who’s working predominantly in white spaces, dealing with microaggressions from, “Can I touch your hair,” to, “Only talk to me about Black news and not regular news,” to, “Why do you crease your jeans,” so whatever the case may be, not all of these are mean and nasty things, but they’re things that keep reminding me I’m not seen as just an employee or partner, I’m seen as Black first.

We have found that illnesses develop in us more quickly. Because of the stress of those microaggressions, we find that we are more prone to diabetes, hypertension, even dementia, et cetera. We wrote a proposal to the Wisconsin Partnership Program saying that we can reduce those microaggressions. If we are allowed to train white people in understanding the roots of these microaggressions so that they create a different environment at their doctor’s offices, their law offices, their classrooms, wherever they are, if they create better space for people of color, they will reduce the stress that shortens their lives. Conversely, I said, “We need to bring emerging Black leaders to the table.” So we need to take Black employees who are nominated by their employers, to invest them in this seven-month process where we have Black speakers and presenters, and we talk about what does it mean to bring all of you to the table, giving them Black space to process what it means to still be the first and the only. You and I know about that well, being the first and the only at this point in 2024.

We bring Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara to talk to them a little bit about Black history, and understanding themselves and the resilience of our communities. So between investing in Black leadership and training would-be white allies, we could reduce the microaggressions that Black people were experiencing and help Black people and white people and everyone else to work together on solutions by having a better understanding of the way things work. That by doing that, we could reduce the health risks of Black people in our community.

We received a million-dollar grant to do that work. And so I just want to make sure that I put that on it as well, that it’s not just, oh, let’s just talk about history and have a kumbaya moment. No, there’s a lot of strategy. We captured data on this in order to prove that if we’re going to create space for Black wellness, it begins with non-Black allies understanding how we got here. It’s training Black emerging leaders in understanding how they run with the ball from here. By doing both of those together, we begin to create the capacity to change the environment in Madison that will make it perhaps more attractive to other Black people, because this environment will no longer be detrimental to our health.

Murv Seymour:
What’s corporate America’s role in all this?

Rev. Alex Gee:
As we move ahead, I’m working on the Center for Black Excellence and Culture, a place where Black people can come and celebrate our resistance, our stories, and tell our stories, and have this fine arts space, this cultural space. The corporate community has responded tremendously. Because they realize — I’ve asked them, “What do you do with an employee who’s been hired? And she happens to be Black, and she’s the candidate head and shoulders above the rest? At the end of the interview, she says, ‘I want this job, but can someone drive me around your city and just show me a few examples of Black innovation?’ Where would you take her?” This was on Zoom to the Chamber of Commerce board. No one said anything, not a single response. I’ve asked that with other CEOs. And what they’ve said to me later was, “Alex, if you asked me that question about a Latina woman, a Latinx woman, I would know. If you asked me that about an Asian man, I would know. A white woman, I would know. I don’t know what I would say. I’ve never thought about that.”

Then I said, your competition is not Epic, Exact Sciences, SSM, UW, the bank down the street. That’s not your competition. Your competition is civic life in Madison for Black people at 5 o’clock when they go home from work, and they want to be around other Black people like they were in D.C., Atlanta, Raleigh, Dallas, Chicago, Milwaukee. We don’t have that here. We’re having health implications, one of the reasons why we’re not keeping people here, ’cause they’ve come from places where that was just a given. You can’t ask Black people to be the first and the only in their jobs that have no place to go to be reinforced by people who share their culture. And the business community got it.

That’s why we’ve been so successful in our fundraising campaigns, ’cause people understand that’s a piece of the puzzle that we’ve never considered.

Murv Seymour:
So we know people of color move here, sometimes have a tough time adjusting. And we know that people grow up here and they have a tough time adjusting. I read that you prefer to see Black people stay here in Madison.

Rev. Alex Gee:
Sure do.

Murv Seymour:
Why is that?

Rev. Alex Gee:
I want to see Black people stay here because Madison has promising opportunities. I want our people — I want Black people to take advantage of that. It’s a beautiful community. It’s a world-class university. So many things to do. But it’s not catering to us culturally. So it never feels like home. The example I use is, if I went to my grandmother’s house with all of my cousins, and everyone else’s picture was up on her fireplace or her mantle but mine, everyone else’s homework and drawings but mine, at some point I would say, “Grandma, is there something you want to tell me?” Or, “Mom and Dad, is there something y’all aren’t telling me?” Madison feels like that. That a lot of people see their artwork, they see themselves, they see their pictures and their faces, but the Black community, we really don’t. When we are talked about, it’s the Bucks, it’s the Packers, or it’s the prisons, or it’s reports. But it’s not the Black resilient brilliance. It’s not a historical perspective. It’s always pejorative, and that’s not who we are. And we’ve done more for this state than just that.

And so I want — not only do I want that narrative changed, I want us to be the one to change it. And I want space where that’s changed, to have space where we tell our stories and space where we train our leaders. I want to make this place attractive to Black people from all over so there’s actually a place where we can sigh and have a reprieve from being the first and the only. ‘Cause it’s OK to be the first and the only. But historically, when you were the first and the only, you still went back to a community, you still went back to a center, you still went back to a church, you still went back someplace where you could say, “My people. I’m not crazy. I could be reinforced. I can go out and do it another day.” When you don’t have that, your days are limited.

Murv Seymour:
Are you ever worried about your safety with the work that you do?

Rev. Alex Gee:
It’s not my first reaction. But people often — close friends will pull me to the side and they’ll just say, “You know, you just need to be a little bit more cautious.” Not in what I say, but just whether or not I travel alone, posting if I’m out of town or not, making sure my house has a good security system. People have brought up things to me in the line of my work saying I just need to be aware, that it could be — that what I’m doing could feel threatening to some. But it’s not my first thought.

Murv Seymour:
So it’s been 10 years since you wrote that first essay. The Cap Times came back and wanted you to write a another one. You just did that recently here.

Rev. Alex Gee:
I did.

Murv Seymour:
I saw that it started off with you saying, “Yes, I am still angry. And yes, it is still justified.”

Rev. Alex Gee:
Yes.

Murv Seymour:
What are we saying there?

Rev. Alex Gee:
Well, because I know people are wondering, “Have things gotten better? You know, are you still angry? Has your work made you less angry? Has your work fixed things so that you have less to be angry about?” So I just started out by answering the question that I knew people had. Yes, I’m still angry and it’s still justified. But let’s talk about what I’ve been up to. But there’s so much work and so much that still needs to be done that I can’t afford to let up off the anger gas. Because it still motivates me to make things better.

Murv Seymour:
Part of that essay, you said that you just want to thrive in your hometown. When you look at all the great work you’re doing, all the different arms that your organization is involved with, do you not feel like you’re thriving?

Rev. Alex Gee:
You know, it’s impossible to really thrive alone if you think about community as an ecosystem. You can’t just have a good flower but the soil is crappy and it’s dry and there’s no irrigation and there’s no weeding and no fertilizing and no sun. By definition, if I’m doing well but my people aren’t, it’s not thriving, I’m just finding ways to succeed in spite of it all. Thriving has to do with the infrastructure. It has to do with the ecosystem. I want to create something so that thriving is normalized and it’s not just an occasional person or two doing well. So no, I’m doing well, but I’m not thriving. Because I need more people to be thriving and to see this as a great destination. We are moving to that place, but without space to tell our stories and be ourselves and be reinforced and create a new narrative and hold others accountable, we’re not thriving yet. But we are getting awfully close to thriving here.

Murv Seymour:
Yeah.

Rev. Alex Gee:
It’s going to happen.

Murv Seymour:
You also said that 10 years is not enough time to fix all of our problems in the Black community, but it’s enough time to move the needle. How much has the needle moved since you began this effort?

Rev. Alex Gee:
I mean, I see instances of growth. But again, using the the ecosystem analogy, you can plant a garden, but you can’t make the sun come out. You can’t make it. You can water, but you can’t make it rain. The issue with the Black community is not the Black community. The issue with the Black community is systemic racism. It’s these structures that are in place and people that are leading them and benefiting from them. That’s got to be changed. That’s got to be acknowledged. That’s got to be held accountable if we’re going to really see true thriving. So when people ask me, “Aren’t things better?” I want to ask them, “Well, how have you changed? How have your friendships changed? How has your office changed? Your board changed? Your leaders changed?” That’s the true indication of this.

I’m not fixing Black people so that white people can feel more comfortable. By addressing the issues of Black people, I’m helping this community to become really what it can be, who it really can be, and a place where everyone can thrive. The white community doesn’t need to be watching me work and trying to decide if I’m fixing it, or watching the Black community to see if things are better. The Black community has not created these systems, these systems that hinder Black thriving. We need something to happen in the broader system in order to stop impeding Black success and Black thriving. So whenever that happens, whenever people get that memo, whenever people get that inclination, that unction to do something different, that will then exacerbate the outcomes. That will then exponentiate those outcomes. But that’s something that we can’t do.

But until then, I’ll train would-be white allies to understand the benefit of work that they do in their communities to help them dismantle these impediments to Black wellness and Black health. When that begins to happen on a large scale, we will see huge change. So the white community is not waiting for us. We’re waiting for the white community.

Murv Seymour:
Then what’s your call to action for this community for Blacks and whites? And is it the same call to action for everyone?

Rev. Alex Gee:
It’s a different call. I think to the white community, the call is educate, donate, affiliate. Understand the issues, support the issues, and affiliate with people in organizations that are different than you. Become connected. Don’t just say, “Oh, yeah, I give to,” but you don’t know anyone, that that enriches lives and experiences. To the Black community, I would say, “We’ve got to prepare ourselves. We’ve got to build this space. We’ve got to train our own and equip our own and develop our own and celebrate our own.” That those are things that we’ve got to do. So we have this, each of those groups and all groups have work. And for our allies who are non-Black and are not white, we need their partnership as well. In fact, in our history class, when we break up into small groups to discuss the lectures, we help to group people based on those ethnic identities. Also, because we want them to know that we need all hands on deck. So I would say to the Black community, “Let’s build, let’s develop, let’s grow.” Because we are creating opportunity and we want to be ready as those doors open.

Murv Seymour:
In your second essay, you said, “White influencers must own injustices facing Black Madison.” Who is that demand aimed toward?

Rev. Alex Gee:
White influencers.

That’s funny — I know you’re looking at me saying, “I just asked you that question.” It’s interesting. When white influencers say Black leaders, they have five to six people come to mind. When I say white influencers to white influencers, they say they don’t know who that is. Like yeah, you do. You just don’t call ’em white influencers. The chancellor, the mayor, the governor, the county executive, the head of Exact Sciences, the head of Epic, the head of SSM, you all know who they are. They’re just not called white influencers. They’re just called leaders. Influencers. They give us names so they can pick who the four or five are. So, they know who they are. The people who wield authority, who run organizations, who pick political leaders, who support them, they know who they are. We need them to use that power and influence to help their peers practice fairness in every sphere of business, education, and civic life in this community. Whatever attributes they offer to Black people, whatever those indicators are to make them think that that Black person is a Black leader, they need to just attribute those same things to themselves and figure out who their leaders are. They need to motivate those people to do better.

Murv Seymour:
What’s your gauge on whether or not you’re moving the needle?

Rev. Alex Gee:
Whoo, building the Center for Black Excellence and Culture and breaking ground in summer of 2024. That’s one of them. I think the 5,000 graduates, the people who finished our course, that gives me hope. You know, Mr. Seymour, some of our alumni, they create their own action plans. ‘Cause that’s not my work. I can’t tell white people what to do to be effective. They’re smart enough to do that.

But we have a group that have created a program called Court Observers. They sit in on court cases just to monitor how people are challenged. They sit in on court cases just to monitor how people are treated. They have documentation from 11,000 court case observations. This is not paperwork they’ve read. These are notes they’ve taken. They have sat in on 11,000 court cases, half of which are Black people. We have that data. They took this upon themselves. That gives me hope, that just by sitting in the courtroom providing a level of accountability. It doesn’t change everything, but that moves the needle. Because then that helps us to think, well, what if we sit in on expulsion hearings and foster care hearings and Medicare hearings? These are not Black people. These are white people using just their time and energy to observe. And what they’re noting, what they’re capturing, is blowing them away. ‘Cause they’re thinking, “I never would’ve believed that these differences were happening. I would not have believed it had I not documented it myself.”

They sit in on the courts and watch a DA ask for one thing for a Black defendant, and then in the same day before the same judge recommend a whole different outcome from someone of another ethnic group. To the point that the judge had to say, “Wait, you just recommended for the same crime this for the Black defendant but this for the white defendant.” And our court observers captured that. That gives me hope. They’re going to report out on that information. They’re going to talk about it. But people educating themselves, donating, and then affiliating themselves to organizations and causes that bring about change, that’s how we move the needle. It’s not a huge needle, but that’s moving in the right direction — 11,000 cases, 5,000 people, 80 participants in our emerging Black leadership program, that helps you to move the needle. Now it’ll be a few years until we see the impact from that. But those steps, that action gives me a lot of hope.

Murv Seymour:
Now, I know you’re a man of words, you’re an educator. But I noticed that your first essay ends with the word, “Forward.” And then your second essay ends with the words, “I remain committed and angry and courageous.” That has to be some symbolism to…”

Rev. Alex Gee:
Oh, that’s a good observation. With the first essay, I ended with the word “Forward” because that’s our state motto. So I wanted to underscore the fact I’m a Wisconsinite to my core. Let’s live into this motto. Because we’re walking backwards when it comes to race relations. So that was a subtle jab to my fellow Wisconsinites. Let’s live into our state’s identity. With the second, I wanted to sound a little bit more seasoned because even though I want to continue to push the systems to continually change, I’ve raised $25 million in this community in 24 months in order to create space to help Black people feel more at home and to help the non-Black community to come into state-of-the-art space that will talk about our contributions to the state of Wisconsin. So really, I couldn’t just say, “Nothing’s changed, nothing’s changed.” But I couldn’t say everything’s changed, because the community is helping me to build this space. I wanted to find a middle ground.

I wanted to let people know that even with building this space, I’m angry because that’s an outward expression of pain and fear. Those things are still very real. You know, I drove home from La Crosse recently. I’m still very cautious when I’m in rural areas between major cities. And so that brings a sense of anger. But referring back to Augustine’s quote, I’ve got to be able to hold anger and courage in an appropriate tension if I’m going to arrive at hope. So by saying I remain courageous and angry, and saying that I’m still focusing on hope, but just arriving and having one major success doesn’t mean that we’ve all arrived. Until we all arrive, I’ve got to be angry for the brothers and sisters who have not arrived at the table. I’ve got to be. Otherwise, I’ll forget about them.

So there was some symbolism to what I said in the second because I wanted them to know that you’re not going to get me to stop being angry anytime soon. But you’re not going to stop me from being courageous either. Because I will have hope. Because I have nothing else to offer the community if I don’t have that.

Murv Seymour:
Dr. Gee, thank you for your time, sir.

Rev. Alex Gee:
Mr. Seymour, it’s good to talk with you again.