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Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
Announcer 0:00
This is a K-Unb Studios original program.
Wesley Knight 0:04
You're listening to special programming sponsored by Making Moves Life Coaching Services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and Moore, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Music 0:35
You can see what's going on. great
Dave Washington 0:49
day, Las Vegas, great day, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 jazz and more. Cat Wes sitting over there in the captain's seat, keeping me on track, and I have my wonderful wife Marcia. After I think of make a few announcements, she will join. We're going to talk about a documentary that we sit down and watch the other night for the second time for me, but on Dr. Ruby Duncan. So, with that, I want to say that her children can be very proud of them for her services. She did, they did both a memorial on Friday night and a funeral service on Saturday, both well attended. And I can tell you, even though the service itself was, what was it, March, about three and a half, about three hours long, two and a half, 10
Marsha Washington 1:39
to 1o'clock yeah, one,
Dave Washington 1:42
and you know, it wasn't sad and down, it was uplifting, you know, they had good songs and people spoke well, people laughed, of course, some of the grandchildren cried, but it was a well laid out service, and we appreciate Dave for reaching out to us and asking Marcia and I to speak on Friday night at the memorial, but job well done to Dave and family, Ivory, you guys, Kenny, you guys, Roy, you did a wonderful job. So thanks so very much for allowing us to participate. When this show airs, services will be held for Brother Thomas Whitson, so those who can make it, I don't have that information at hand as to where it will be, but I know it will be on Saturday the sixth. Once again, we're this this weekend, we'll be celebrating the 35th year of the Carl Holmes Executive Development Institute in New Orleans, Louisiana, at Dillard University, outstanding program that's been on the campus of Dillard for 25 years now, and in our leadership role we have Gene Campbell, retired fire chief at the helm, as the president we have Annette Nance Holt, who is the fire commissioner for the great city of Chicago, and our executive director is Miss Carla Holmes, the daughter of Dr. Carl Holmes, one of the co-founders of this wonderful institute. So, hoping that all is well, we ask for God's prayer that everybody who's headed that way will have safe travels. With that, I'm going to ask my wife to come in, and again, we just watched again the documentary on Dr. Ruby Duncan. What you got to say, wifey, Marsha?
Marsha Washington 3:27
Well, after watching the documentary again, it really gave me a lot of insight. God had sent Miss Ruby here for a purpose, and nothing was going to deter her while she was on assignment for the Lord and for our community during that time of I think during the from 1966 all the way up to 1972 she was fighting for welfare rights and mothers, and during that time I was in high school, so I really wasn't abreast of what was going on, you know? I was like a teenager, it wasn't really paying attention, plus my mother and father both had jobs, so they worked and everything, so I wasn't, you know, keeping up with the news at that time,
Dave Washington 4:19
right,
Marsha Washington 4:20
but one thing I realized is that everything that she did, going on a strip, protesting, taking all those people out there and children out there to eat, and then stopping traffic, cloak them, locking the doors at the casinos at the Sands, and at some of the other hotels that she was very, very fortunate, and God had her back, because back then in the 60s the mafia was very well known for if you mess with their money, you could come up there, they was. Of burying people, killing people, chopping them up in little bitty pieces, taking them out to Lake Mead, and a lot of bodies still have not been found for owing the casino money and money disappearing, etc. etc. So, like I said, it was God's grace and God's favor on her life during that whole time that she, you know, fought right for mothers,
Dave Washington 5:25
absolutely. And I will, again, again and again and again encourage folks to watch the documentary, and I believe it's on Channel 10, I believe covered that, but I can tell you that it will be a great thing for young people to see, even though they haven't gone through the types of trials and tribulation, and as I spoke on Friday night, I mentioned how, you know, had it not been for her, when my mother and father, we were, I think I was between 10 and 12 years old, when they got divorced, that we wouldn't have had much to eat, considering the fact that my dad wasn't working regularly, and you know we get that peanut butter and the grease will be at the top, you got to stir it up real good, and and also that that hard hard cheese that you have to put on some bread and put it in the oven and kind of melt it down a little bit, but I'm gonna tell you it helped us to sustain because had it not been for her fighting effort and and she always give credit to those women who were a part of her team because they all did some tremendous work together to ensure their welfare moms black and white and throughout in fact because there was one woman who came from up in the Reno area, a young white woman who said that we want to eat, we got to eat, and it's not just black folks, it's white folks too. All of us, our children are without, and we're not going to let you do this to us without us fighting you. And they took on the fight, and as Marcia indicated, they shut down that strip on several occasions, and they had people coming in, Jane Fonda. There were so several other celebrities who came into town as a part of that overall fight, and I can tell you that it made a difference. And once again, I'm going to continue to encourage, to include my own grandchildren in watching that documentary, because it really points out, and to Marsha's point, this woman got lots of threats on her life, but she never, she never slowed down, and I know in the documentary where Dave talked about, he could see it on her face that she was disturbed, that people would call her in the middle of the night, all hours of the night, and talking about hurting her and her children, but she was our Fannie Lou Hamer. I mean, this woman was a stand-up tall to the powers that be, and you're not going to treat us women in this way. And she took it on, so we're very proud of her. And once again, as I mentioned on the previous show, it is my intent to, and I've already asked Dave and some of his siblings to come on the show if they're willing to. I don't want to press anyone, but I think it's worthy of our audience to hear about what they have to say about their mom, Marcia.
Marsha Washington 8:18
And another thing that I'd like to say is that during that time, Las Vegas would have stayed in Nevada, well, during the country was very racist at that time, and to think that a black woman was causing this disruption in this city of entertainment was something else that you know people didn't think of. I mean, I came. I had moved here in 1966 and the schools were integrated here, but not in Louisiana, where I'm from, the same little small town she's from, but, like I said, you remember that they didn't even want the entertainers to stay on the strip, and the only thing they could do is go to work on a strip, and then come home and not have any affiliation at all with the strip. So, for her to do what she did, God was really, really with her, and I just cannot say that more than once. That how God had her back and had her had her cupboard and her children as well, and the rest of the mothers for what they did,
Dave Washington 9:26
no doubt, because you know you don't mess with the big boys, and especially as you mentioned messing with the money, slowing down the money, because when you're marching on that strip, you can slow down and disrupt, disrupt traffic, some people will, when they get the word out, they don't want to come to Las Vegas because they're afraid, hey, I don't want to get hurt out there, I don't want to get caught up in this madness, but she was forthright in her opinion that you're not going to do this to women and our children without us standing up and saying no, we're going to fight you, and we're going to fight. To the very end, and one thing I said to Dave, and I'll say it again, and I think I said it on the last show, and we kind of recognized and honored her, and again she's on show 99 as well as last week, and it's very appropriate and unrealized how the ancestors work. We recognize and honor her on show number west, number 201 201 and Wes, Wes, I appreciate you, man, because Wes put that together. I said, Wes, can you, me and Marsh, gonna come and talk and honor Dr. Ruby Duncan? Can you, however, they do it, edit and put that in where she was on the show a few months back, fact, six, seven, maybe eight months ago, or longer, but let's say, yeah, I got that, no problem. And if you listen to the show, that was, uh, that was two different time frames, but well done, and I appreciate Wes for, for laying that out for us, because I just think it's important for us not to forget people, and as I mentioned to Dave, and I got shortly. I got sidetracked there in my own mind for a second, but I told Dave, your mom, at 93 years of age, man, you guys are so blessed that she was still in control of her faculties, and I saw her just a few days before she passed, and she was still energetic, and you know, she talked about her illness, but I can tell you that she was in her proper frame of mind, and I know that I know some people much younger whose minds are just drifting away. So we thank God that Dr. Ruby, and something that Marsha mentioned again, if you will, how much coaching she did of you when you were serving in the Senate,
Marsha Washington 11:41
yes, she had, excuse me, explained to me that if I needed anything, to let her know, but to stand tall and do what was right by the people, and you know one thing I realized when I was up there serving is that unfortunately everybody was not there to serve the community, they was not there making sound decisions. Now, this is my opinion,
Dave Washington 12:06
right,
Marsha Washington 12:06
on some of the bills and things that was passed. It wasn't based on what was best for the community. So, what we need to do is remember to get out and vote, and vote for people who have the community's interest at heart, and only the community, and not for self preservation. So, we need to remember that. Please, everyone, get out and vote.
Dave Washington 12:29
Well said. Well, once again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More. Wes has given me that count, and I can tell you, once again, to Marsha's point, let's get out and vote, as Dr. Ruby Duncan said, we're not trying to tell you who to vote for, but you certainly need to get out and not be one who sit around and say, "My vote don't count. Yes, it does. So, please do that. Once again, Veterans Affairs Plus on it. On the other side, we'll have an educator, Freddie Rossi. So, thanks, Marcia, for coming on, you. once again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 jazz and more. Again, in the first segment, we had former State Senator Marsha Washington, my wife, and we just had to have some further discussion because we thought it was important to inform people the documentary on Route, Dr. Ruby Duncan storming Caesar's Palace, and also this morning, while over at the library, where I finally gave up West the last check of $4,550 to the Dr. William Bill Sullivan Foundation to his wife Cherie, and while there we saw a book, and it's called, let me, let me find it, I know I took a picture of it, but this, this is a book that was written in honor of Dr. Ruth, it's called Storming Caesar's Palace, it's black mothers fought their own war on poverty, and I can't get that, I can't see the name of the, the author, but it's certainly a book that's worthy of picking up, and one one thing I'll say further, Freddie, before I bring you on, is Dr. Ruby Duncan was a political strategist, and I can tell you that a lot of people call on this woman to get some assistance and tell and teach them how to deal with elected officials, because she was very shrewd, but very kind. I mean, you know, as I think about it, I never saw her get screaming mad, you know? I can get to cussing and fussing and make my wife angry with me. You cuss too much. I've been cussing all my life, but anyway, to that, I'd like to introduce a friend and an avid golfer friend, Freddie. Pronounce it again, Rose. Here, Freddy
Fred Rosser 14:48
Rosser,
Dave Washington 14:49
Rosser, Freddy Rosser.
Fred Rosser 14:51
Yep,
Dave Washington 14:51
he is an educator from our community. Freddie, give our listening audience a little indication about who you are, where you're from, because I think it's important for them to know. As we get into some discussion here about education,
Fred Rosser 15:03
okay, sounds good. I'm Freddie Rosser. I was born in Detroit, Michigan. I taught school in Detroit at the Detroit public schools. I started teaching when I was 20 years old.
Dave Washington 15:13
I did
Fred Rosser 15:14
multiple jobs in Detroit. I loved it. It was just.. I was.. I was birthed out, and then I wanted to come to Las Vegas, because my mother had never been around in their grandkids, so I moved my family out here and worked at CCSd.
Dave Washington 15:29
So, you said you start teaching at 20. So, what drew you to educating or wanting to be a teacher?
Fred Rosser 15:37
Well, I came home, I was in broadcast journalism, just like you're doing right now, what?
Fred Rosser 15:42
And this was back in that, yeah. I was, that's what I started in college in 8384 Then I heard my voice, I said, "Oh my god. I was good at the talent, but my voice didn't sound great. And then I came on one summer, and all I kept hearing was they don't have any black male teachers.
Dave Washington 16:00
Wow,
Fred Rosser 16:01
and that's what drew me in education. They, they were sitting, we have no black male teachers, and it was so ironic. I went through the regular process in Detroit, and I couldn't get a job. And then I moved to North Carolina, and then I ran a couple of my old teachers. They said, 'mr. Ross, they said, Freddie, you ain't got a job. They made two, three phone calls. Two days later, I was working.
Dave Washington 16:24
Wow. So, so, how long? Unbelievable. How long did you work in education prior to moving to Las Vegas? How many years?
Fred Rosser 16:31
Oh God, I worked in there for 14 years.
Dave Washington 16:34
Okay, so Detroit and down south, or was that all in Detroit? Detroit?
Fred Rosser 16:38
Yeah, I did. Detroit. Oh, I taught in Detroit. I started out in Wilmington, North Carolina. I did one year there, came back to Detroit with 14 years there. I taught one year in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then I came back to base. I don't been around a little bit, so I got a good idea of, and I've taught, I've taught grades K through 12, and also adult education, and I taught at College of Southern Nevada, an ESL class.
Dave Washington 17:08
Oh, okay, yeah. Because that was gonna be my next question. What was the area? So, you, you did the full gamut, huh?
Fred Rosser 17:14
Yeah, I don't talk. I'm pretty well rounded in what it takes. I've taught every, you know, I've taught at elementary, middle, high school adult ed and community college, so,
Dave Washington 17:24
so, as you see it today, Freddie, what can be done to, because I know that Nevada has has had for some time issues, but, but before, before I take you there, I got to go back to the, I got to go to the golf, I know you like me, you're an average. How long you been golfing, Freddie?
Fred Rosser 17:44
I started, I started golfing when I was in the last year in high school, only with high school three years. It was so ironic because it was, we was like the last school that I said, just to be frank, that we was one of the last school in Detroit on the East Side that had white kids, and they were all on the baseball team, and they only had three golfers, and I used to watch golf with my granddaddy, and I said, "I'll go out there and play, and my math coach, he was the golf coach, and I think I shot 54 for the first nine holes, and I was like, "Man, this is terrible. He said, "No, that's not terrible, and I knew what he was talking about when I played the next time, and it was 100 something.
Dave Washington 18:22
Well, you know, playing
Fred Rosser 18:24
golf over 40 years.
Dave Washington 18:25
Oh, wow, yeah. I started when I was 56 and I can tell you that Lewis Connor, he said, man, you need to look it up. If you shoot under 100 you're in the top 10% of golfers in the world. I'm like, what? Yeah, it's pretty
Fred Rosser 18:39
nice. I like
Dave Washington 18:41
it. I do too. I love the game. So, what was your overall main discipline as an educator? What
Fred Rosser 18:47
consistency, and you gotta, you gotta treat every kid the same as the infraction. If you treat, if one kid comes to class late and you treat them different than you treat another kid that came to class late, you're not going to be successful. If a kid talks out, you got to treat everybody the same when you do discipline. That's worked for me and my 40 plus years of teaching, and I've always been like that. I got, you know, one, I got one rule: do what you do, what I ask you to do. Period. And that works for me, you know. It all is, you got to have a strong management, you got to have a strong management, and you got to demand respect from the children, and you get that by showing them respect, right? And that works out well. And you see a lot of people that's not doing that, and that's why you got a lot of a variety of disciplinary problems, because even at the administration level, they don't, they treat kids differently, according, quote unquote, a behavior, a problem kid may get a harsher penalty than a so-called good kid,
Dave Washington 19:52
so that's,
Fred Rosser 19:54
and that, that, that destroys discipline,
Dave Washington 19:56
absolutely. So, in terms of topics, what. Your favorite topic to teach young folks.
Fred Rosser 20:03
My background is in English, that was my minor, because it was journalism, but my main goal was to teach. I always like teaching ninth graders. I said, when you get to the 10th grade, you'll get that great English teacher, but everybody who's gonna get my kids, they gonna learn how to sit down, pay attention, and stay focused, and not disrupt the class,
Dave Washington 20:24
you know.
Fred Rosser 20:24
And that's that's the key thing to learn. It's teaching chaos,
Dave Washington 20:28
right? I agree 100% You know, I've been retired almost 20 years now, and it was my intent, and I heard your point about there not being enough black male teachers. In fact, that's still the case today. In fact, when I, when I made a decision, which I never truly followed, I did start filling out the application. It must have been 130 must have been 140 130 140 questions. It seemed like they were doing a psychological profile, as I'm answered, because I thought that was a similar question back 20 questions ago. But anyway, I didn't hit the, I didn't hit the proper save button, and I never ever really went back. But when I caught, when I called HR, I said, "I'm interested in becoming a teacher. They said, "Oh, good, you're a black male. Yes, they said, "Well, oh, we need, we need math, and we need science, and we need English teachers, and I said, "Wrong guy, how about some history, some social studies, some civics? Well, with
Fred Rosser 21:28
CCSd, right? Let me, let me tell you about that school district. I, I found it to be, I found it to be extremely racist, and 17, I went through two disciplinary problems, I was an administrator because I stand up and I speak my mind, you know. They don't, they don't really like that. And I've won two arbitration here, my last arbitration here, and this is the most incredible part, where they're talking about they need black men. I didn't hire a coach because he showed up 30 minutes out of six hours of practice, and they tried to fire me. They escorted me off campus like I had stole money or had a sexual assault case. Wow, they escorted me off because the arbitrator, doing arbitrator, the arbitrator actually laughed at him, and he wrote the shortest, the shortest verdict I've ever seen. It was only six pages, that was my second arbitration, and I won at just CCSD, so I just retired set for may 27 You know, I'll never work for them again, because you know it's becoming a fraud. Dave, when you, when you got kids, this is a schedule in some high schools. Can you imagine this? A kid's taking English one, English two, and English three in the same semester. Wow. So, how you gonna take English one, two, and three? You're supposed to take one, pass one, then you go to two. Same way with math, kids taking algebra two, and they failed algebra one. It's actually a shame what they're doing to the kids, and nobody's being held accountable.
Dave Washington 22:58
Well, that was one of my questions to you, what? What do you think? Because I know, again, with 40 years of experience, you must have some idea of what can be done to be more corrective in terms of addressing, and that is insane to have you in one when you're supposed to have one to help the just like college. I know the one on one class of more your freshmen want to
Fred Rosser 23:22
prerequisite. right? Yeah, go to two until you pass one,
Dave Washington 23:25
exactly. And they got, and they got them all, some of them in the same classes doing in the same semester. That makes absolute man. You talk about will crush your kids' confidence, that's a way of doing, yeah.
Fred Rosser 23:37
Who would want to go to school if you got three English classes, three math classes, but you shouldn't get promoted to us to another class until you pass the first class. I think that's one of the problems that's been going on probably the last 15 years. It's really shameful. What you got to do is you got to tighten it up at the elementary levels, like I said, I taught at Nevada. I taught at Nevada Prep. I was the principal at Nevada Prep when I, because I went on, took a leave of absence, and this parent called me right when school got out. Her son had just got out to eighth grade,
Dave Washington 24:15
right?
Fred Rosser 24:16
The parent called me on my cell phone. She said, "mr. Ross, I'm scared for my son to go to high school. I said, "What's the problem? He said, "mr. Ross, he can't read, and he's going to the ninth grade. And then she said, "But guess what? He got an A in ELA. I said, "What did you say, Liz? She said, "He got an A in ELA, and he, but he can't read, and he couldn't read, and he.. but he did get an A. That's another problem with the quality of teachers that we have. It's everybody believes they could be a teacher, right? It's reason why you get a teacher license. It's a reason why
Dave Washington 24:51
it's
Fred Rosser 24:51
called a profession, you know. You got to have an accountant degree, you got to have certain credentials in order to do certain jobs, and. And teaching, it's just become anybody can teach, and they just let anybody teach, and it's really shameful.
Dave Washington 25:06
Once again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and Moore. I have Freddy Rosser, he is a former educator, recently retired, or soon to retire, and there are some issues that need to be addressed, in fact, maybe I'll try to get some of the higher ups to come on, because I always, you know, this is not a new show, but it's a show where it's about veterans and trying to get veterans their benefits, etc. but also added the plus, so we can talk about things that are of interest and of importance to our community, and I think education is certainly one of them, so we appreciate what you have to say in this regard. And you've been retired, well, soon to retire, and I guess play more golf. Are you going to try to inspire some, some, some other youth to bait
Fred Rosser 25:56
them?
Dave Washington 25:57
Okay,
Fred Rosser 25:57
I'm in that stage where I got another few weeks to decide what I want to do,
Dave Washington 26:02
so,
Fred Rosser 26:04
so I'm gonna look at myself, I'm gonna look into some other stuff, you know, doing some volunteer work, hopefully,
Dave Washington 26:09
right? Yeah, I think I think volunteering is a good thing. I always tell people, man, because some people think that, you know, because I got my little part-time job working for the Wellness Center with Frank Hawkins, that I was bored. No, I'm not bored. I want to keep my mind moving, you know. And I serve on a number of board of directors, but to you, to your point in wanting to do that kind of stuff, I think it's important. By the same token, I, because I used to just, I was like Mikey, I would do, yeah, okay, I got you, I got you. Then I said no, three to five, and right now I serve on about three different boards, and that's that's it, man. Because otherwise people think that you retire just to serve on boards, which I think there's a, there's a great need for sure, and they need perspective. In fact, I said on the United Way board of directors for 15 years, I was still working. I told my boss, Dr. Selby, you know, I'm gonna take off 30 minutes because our meetings run right into my work time. He said, "No, you're actually there representing us as well. But I always, if there was something that come up that they were, that people was kind of like looking down their nose at children that were in poverty, I'm like, "No, yeah, you're not gonna do that, and you know what? If you're sitting at the table and not saying something when people are, are speaking wrong with the, with the wrong intent, and it's going to be harmful to two people. Period. Let alone youth, black, white, male, female, you can't do that, man. Otherwise, why are you there, right? Exactly, children are children, and if you're not going to be there. I remember I was at.. it was a.. it was a program out of UNOV, and I would imagine I forget the professor who was running, but she was also with the district. She'd have guests, guest speakers to come out, Freddie, and she asked me to come speak, and this, what I said very directly to these were all teachers, and I guess it's some kind of recertification, whatever the case may be. I said, look, if you don't care about children of all ethnic groups and genders, you need to find something else to do, and they just kind of looked at me, I mean, she knew she knew what a kind of guy was, and I'm not gonna come in here and shoot blanks or soft shoe when I, when I get a feeling that people aren't doing the right thing, and one of them was, if you're gonna teach, you got to care about children, like you say, you can't put a color on
Fred Rosser 28:36
it, nope, you gotta, you got that's the main priority,
Dave Washington 28:39
go ahead and go ahead, and in fact, give me some wrap-up as you, as you are speaking now.
Fred Rosser 28:44
All right. Well, this, you know, CCSd needs to focus on what's important. Need to, it's more like friends and family. If you're not going, you're not gonna rock the boat. They want you to move up the ladder. You're gonna question higher up, you're not gonna move up, and I'm a question higher up, and this town is not meant for that. I worked at the Charter Authority. I questioned the hires up. Two days later, they like, okay, we don't need you, and I'm like, well, I'm gonna speak. You're not gonna just say anything that's not true. You can't do that. And I'm here for kids, and that's.. I don't care nothing about no adults. I care about these kids and their parents.
Dave Washington 29:22
Well said. Well, once again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More. We had soon to retire Freddie Rosie Rosser, Rosser, who has a lot to say, and I trust that he'll be actively involved in our community. We appreciate you coming on the show, young man. Take care, and I'll see you on the call. Thank you
Fred Rosser 29:41
very much, mr. Washington. All right.
Dave Washington 29:43
Take care.
Fred Rosser 29:44
Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai