Growth & Grace

Wesley Knight 0:00
The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group and Chris glow and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education

Music 0:13
even better than I was the last time baby

Leaha Crawford 0:30
oh, we back and we back and we back and we back and we back and We back. Hey, good, happy. Saturday morning, Las Vegas, it is it's hot. Outside. It is hot. It is hot. It's just hot. Yeah, can you believe that? Yeah. I mean, two weeks ago I had on a coat, yeah, and it was cold. I can't believe it. We had the air on this week because it got that hot. And in the office, we're sitting there. We're like, you want to know what? Here we go again. Here we go again. Good morning. Julian,

Julian Rosado 1:02
good morning. How are you? I'm pretty actually, you know, the week has been a little frustrated. But you know what? I saw this movie, right? It's called One fine day. Have you seen it before? No, all right, so I love, you know, I will meet on the radio. I love chick flicks, right? I really do. Okay, okay, so I don't know if you've seen it as far as George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer. Okay, and this movie is absolutely amazing. It had me giggling, smiling all the way through. So it lit me up. It

Leaha Crawford 1:31
lit you up. So I like, you wanna know what's so funny? You can tell you're my cousin, because I like goofy stuff too. So because I like to giggle, and I just giggle and laugh and giggle and laugh, all right, so today, y'all, we have some special guests in the studio with us. They're new to Vegas. They're coming here, working on some big things, but they've been doing stuff around the country, so I'm excited to have them in here. And they're a couple, y'all, a couple working together, and you can feel the love in what they do. So I'd like to welcome Mrs. Tammy and Torian Gordon, how y'all doing? Oh, Mr. Mr. Torian and Mrs. Tammy Gordon, I say that, right? How y'all doing this morning? Wonderful. We're

Tammy Gordon 2:08
so happy to be here with you both. Thank you for having us. It is such a pleasure.

Taurean Gordon 2:11
We've been looking forward to this. Oh,

Leaha Crawford 2:13
because we've been trying, we've been planning this. It's been almost a year. You know that, right? It really, it has been, it's been about 10 months, actually, that we've been planning this. And I originally met your team at the Nava conference a year ago. That's right at the Nava conference, and they were talking to me about break TV. And I was like, break TV. Well, what is this? So tell me, first of all, who are you guys? Where are you from, and what brought you to Vegas, and then we'll get into break

Taurean Gordon 2:39
TV. I'll let this beautiful woman start. Oh, go ahead. Okay,

Tammy Gordon 2:41
husband, we're, um, we're a couple originally from Jersey, okay, relocated to California off of a dream. We thought we were going to be hanging out for a year or so, and we've been there for 15 years or so, really, um, so we're in Jersey, North Brunswick, okay, Piscataway area, Central Jersey, nice. Our son's named after Camden. New Jersey, right across the bridge. I used to live in Northern Liberties, oh, that was also in Philly. All right, all right, because

Leaha Crawford 3:08
I am from Philly, I did tell her that before the show, yes, yes, yes, yes. So your son is named Camden.

Tammy Gordon 3:13
Camden. I like that. Okay, we've got a nine year old son, and about five years ago, we decided to bring our collective superpowers together and start working in service of the things that we care about, but collectively as a couple, and now that we've got a nine year old as a family and so a lot of our work is all together with the three of us. I love

Leaha Crawford 3:37
Why? Why did y'all bring the nine year? Why would

Taurean Gordon 3:40
so, you know, he would have come on here. He would have, he would have a good time. He would have taken him. Okay,

Leaha Crawford 3:45
so the next time, because there will be a next time, bring him with you, he's got

Taurean Gordon 3:49
little Camden's coming into, what Tammy didn't mention is she was serving in Camden. So Camden Rutgers, she was building these nonprofits helping the education of our communities. Okay? So that introduction to Camden, which I was doing Management Consulting at the time, was a place that they told you to avoid. They said, don't drive through there. You gotta don't go.

Leaha Crawford 4:10
I'm aware, exit, right? I'm aware. I'm aware, uh huh.

Taurean Gordon 4:13
So when you talk about Tammy, mentioning just us bringing our collective skill sets together, it's my private equity and management consulting experience, along with her nonprofit and education to form our purpose and why, which is Greenwood Seneca, which pays homage to the Black Wall Street for Greenwood district of Tulsa, and then Seneca village that they put Central Park on top of in New York. And

Leaha Crawford 4:37
you wanna know what's so interesting? I just read that story about Seneca village, probably about two months ago, and wasn't aware, and it was, I mean, when I was reading, and I was like, oh my god, really? But you can talk about just a number of things that have, that have happened throughout the US, exactly. It's so many stories, but those are two major

Taurean Gordon 4:56
and we felt like we'll get to the break TV part of. There's the untold stories, and that really is what gave birth to our streaming platform, which is one we don't have any black owned streaming platforms that even have our classics. So that's two or three. So

Leaha Crawford 5:10
you got Claudine on there? Oh, listen,

Taurean Gordon 5:11
Claudine was one of the highly requested ones. But you need to come into America, okay? You gotta have waiting to excel those

Leaha Crawford 5:20
range. They range. I love it. But you brought those 70 flicks back that you really can't find any. You really can't find them anywhere Exactly. So brick TV is a subscription, correct? It is okay. So it's a monthly sub. And someone would just go, would they just Google brick TV? And it comes up.

Taurean Gordon 5:38
You can google brick TV. You can go to www dot thebrick tv.com, or you can download the app from the Apple Store, Google Store, Roku. It's on TV, phone and Web.

Leaha Crawford 5:51
Oh, TV, phone, he said, TV, phone and web, and it's brick, the brick TV. Oh, it's the brick and it's just like the brick TV. And

Taurean Gordon 6:01
you figure our third host, which is in here, little Camden, what he would do in our house, his grandparents house, cousins, all them, is going to Netflix and change everyone's profile pictures for whatever character he wants us all to be that you know, reminds him of himself. The problem that we saw is that's just not enough of us. It's

Leaha Crawford 6:20
not enough characters. Characters, yeah, it's so funny because I, um, I did that on one of my streaming class and that was the issue. I was like, I don't identify with any of these characters. I ended up picking one that I was like, Yeah, we

Taurean Gordon 6:33
were just gonna pick one and that's it. We have to settle we have to settle our story. I wish

Leaha Crawford 6:37
we could create our own. Let me create my own avatar and upload it. Uh huh. Let me create my own avatar cam. I'll do it for you

Taurean Gordon 6:45
exactly. Inquiry, let me tell you that's the impetus for the for the brick TV is, let's create our own stories. Let's create our own story. Let's show ourselves in a way that we know okay, and date those stories. Back to the Mindy empire, to the matusa. Let's have our stories start where our stories start, not from what's being told to us. Now,

Leaha Crawford 7:04
I love it, so us telling our own stories on our own platform. Now, if I was now, if I had a short video or short film, is there a way for me to get it on brick TV?

Taurean Gordon 7:15
Absolutely. You can email us at submissions at the brick tv.com we have a lot of shorts, we have cartoons, we have a mix of content, and we have podcasts, so it's a range inclusive of those movies, but that's how you would get in touch with us,

Leaha Crawford 7:31
all right? So it's submissions@thebricktv.com correct? So if you have, and I know there are people out there, because you can create a movie on your phone, and they are looking for outlets to just show their talents. And sometimes it's so hard just trying to get in the studio and to do different things, and they get frustrated, and then it goes under the bed somewhere, or it gets lost, and you're on to the next thing, right? And this beautiful project is gone. Okay, so submission. So when they do submit, then what happens? We

Taurean Gordon 8:08
review it, so we're looking at the quality. We respond to them. We give them a home to go on the platform, and then we put it in a section that's appropriate. So for us, it's about giving a voice to the voiceless. Okay, all right, it's giving them a platform for those so we reach out and we celebrate them together and market now,

Leaha Crawford 8:26
do you have a performing arts platform too? We

Taurean Gordon 8:29
don't have a performing art, okay.

Leaha Crawford 8:31
Well, okay, just gave y'all that idea. I'll take that. Okay? I gave that to y'all Performing Arts. You received it. Okay? Because the thing about I know a lot of artists, so they are with books. They want to do something with books. If you could do something live with books like The and it makes it easier for them to promote their

Taurean Gordon 8:50
books. And I'm sorry. From that perspective, we do have books that are on the Yeah, books

Leaha Crawford 8:55
that are on the platform. How about dancing and all that other stuff. Because I know some like, here we have contemporary West Dance Theater. Bernard Gaddis has come on the show. They do it amazing. He was trained at Alvin Ailey, he's done some stuff on a strip. Has a dance company, and they do an amazing performance. That's

Taurean Gordon 9:12
the type of stuff that we're searching for. Okay, we would love that on the platform. And you start thinking about plays, all

Leaha Crawford 9:18
of them, yes, yes.

Taurean Gordon 9:21
It's one thing to film a movie, and now you have several cuts to see the talent of a play, where they have one moment right now to get it perfect, we can film it live, and we can put it on the platform. Okay, so

Leaha Crawford 9:32
I got some people I'm gonna get you in contact with locally, because they do some plays locally here that are off strip, and I think that would be an amazing platform for them to showcase their talents and what they do. Actually, we just had one last week. It was the women who, yeah, the woman who, the woman who. And it was stories. It was a play, and it was stories of black woman, women, um. And just in their struggles, it was seven different stories. And then afterwards they did. They had a panel of men to analyze the different stories. Wow, afterwards, and she had two showings. I will, I will ask Mr. Lee if she can get that to come on again and see if we can get it filmed at the you know, we it was, I didn't make it because I had another project going on, but I know her work, and I know it was absolutely amazing. We also have another young guy here that he wrote his own play. And it was dancing, it was, it was a little bit of everything, and Avery Walker. This my shot, you know, you are my, you are my You are my love. He wrote it, and we were sitting there, and I was like, Oh my God, you did this. So okay, performing arts, do you

Taurean Gordon 10:51
see why 10 months like this? It was worth it. It was just the gym. And thank you. You are so very

Leaha Crawford 10:58
welcome. But that's not all you guys do. Well, hold on. You've been listening to growth and grace. I am Leah Crawford, this is Julian Rosato, okay, so, but they do other stuff, Julian, that's not it. What else? What else y'all

Taurean Gordon 11:09
do? Baby, what do you do? You

Tammy Gordon 11:11
know what I wanna it's taken 10 months for us to get to this conversation, and I'm really grateful to be a part of it, because it's also our platform, the brick, just sort of dialing in on that for a little bit, has also evolved in the last 10 months, and it's become a response and a safe place, especially in this place where our culture and our art and all of what we do is under attack. It's under extreme erasure, at risk of erasure, and what we're really proud of is that there's, there's always been this contemporary access to movies and film and stuff that we know, like cultural important documentation, right? Coming to America has got to be on the platform, right, right? But it's also a landing ground for folks who are creating content, who are saving content, who are archiving content, and are scared that if it's on a platform that's different than something that's black, owned and protected and you know, intentional about its blackness, that it'll go away. Yes, and so the invitation is also for folks who have anything that can be filmed or listened to podcasts. All of those things, is that the brick is a safe space for that, and so we try to mitigate any of the red tape that would be required, right? Like we don't own the content once it's on there, we're literally a safe place for this content to be distributed that keeps ownership with the creatives, it keeps ownership with the artists, and then recirculates and distributes that with audiences who care about that content. And I think if we had talked 10 months ago, we wouldn't have had to show up in that way, right? We'd be showing up with sharing the kind of content that we would hope is seen on all the big ones, right? Like on all any streaming platform that you would think of. But now we also get to be a place where all of the information even thinking about our work here in this city, like, where do the stories get protected and archived and listened to and then distributed to folks who care to listen to and engage in that content? Because I can't find Trading Places, nowhere. You know what my favorite movies? Yeah,

Taurean Gordon 13:17
one of the big parts were like, We want to hear from our community. What do you want to see and to have a platform that you can do that?

Leaha Crawford 13:24
Julian, that was good because I haven't thought about trading places in the and that was my favorites. Yeah, one of my favorites. One of your favorites. Okay, well, see how we had See, I'm glad, I'm glad you decided to get on the mic. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for having me. Yes, next. Okay, so the brick is one thing you guys do as a family. What else do you do?

Taurean Gordon 13:44
So you heard a bit of Tammy. She can't hide the idea that she she holds the preservation side. Okay, so our nonprofit, Greenwood Seneca foundation is the preservation side of the house, and then Seneca Real Estate Services is our development consulting and development side of the house, the real estate. And before we get to the real estate and putting a bow around that, Tam, what else are you preserving out here? Miss Advisory Council for the Smithsonian, for our African American Museum, there's certain things she just won't say that. I just have to scream from mountain tops mountains

Tammy Gordon 14:19
for that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Husband. My biggest fan is my husband, and it's a very beautiful thing. So talk about that. It's a very beautiful thing. So let me, I'll take a step back and just talk about Greenwood Seneca, because all of these entities sit under this umbrella of Greenwood Seneca, which was our response to 2020, and what it meant to have our four year old at the time watch George Floyd being murdered on TV and ahmaud arbery, my husband, started running around the neighborhood like in honor of the fact that Ahmad couldn't run anymore, and we had older parents. We you know, we weren't out in the streets. So we were like, how do we show up in this moment for our people and for our. Community. And it was a really beautiful time for us to bring this management consultant, real estate for profit, work that my husband has done, okay, and then my sort of service oriented nonprofit youth development stuff, and figure out, how do we, how do we bridge all that? So the brick TV was birthed out of that sort of lives under the screen with Seneca umbrella, we started a foundation, which I think in 2020 I was like, babe, why are we doing this? Like, I've been working in nonprofit my whole

Leaha Crawford 15:26
life. I gotta build a board. I gotta do all right? I gotta do all these things. And why am I doing that? And the money, right, right? I gotta raise them. I gotta raise what are we doing, right? But he was

Tammy Gordon 15:35
right, okay, okay, he did. He did the right thing. This is on record. It's on record.

Leaha Crawford 15:39
Okay, right? Okay, so wait 1045 Thank you. 10 four. No, I'm sorry. It's 8:45am okay, we're gonna put it we gonna write that down. Okay, got it. So

Tammy Gordon 15:52
he was right. It was the right thing to do. And so our foundation has allowed me to take this work that I've done in nonprofit and Program Development and Community Engagement, and reposition that with this, I want to say it's a new interest. I think it's been a thing. I just hadn't been degreed in it, so then I went and got degreed in it, because that's my that's my learning language is like, I need to be credible, yes, out here in these streets, and so, like, I like history, and I read a lot of historical romance novels. I love a good rom com and chicks like, you know, and so those things that will tell, I won't even tell you what my favorite movie is, because it's going to discredit a lot of what we're talking about right now. Just tell me off the air. Just tells off the air. It's history, it's romance, okay? It's just not black. So I know, but, but it's my favorite. So, but that that core, that essence of like, how do I how do I capture and tell a story that people are feeling good about, that they care about, that they're emotional about, and how do we do that with history related to black folks that's typically not talked about in that way? Okay, right? When we think about black history, it's hard and challenging and trauma centered, and we're always having to overcome something, but we don't talk about what it meant to be a human living through those experiences, and how you still had to love and you still married and you still had children, and you tucked your babies into bed at night, like even amidst all of the things that were going on. And so green with Seneca Foundation was really our programs steward this reconnection to black history in a way that leaves very specifically black people feeling more joyful and carrying more honor about the idea of being black around here, because we just don't get that information in ways that always feel good, right?

Leaha Crawford 17:37
I see why you married her? You see, yeah, I got it every

Taurean Gordon 17:41
day I have to resell. Hey, I'm the one you should be with, and I'm, I'm honored to do so. So

Leaha Crawford 17:47
he was a smart one, because he got you, yep, yep. Okay, so I was right

Tammy Gordon 17:51
twice. Thank you. One conversation, one

Leaha Crawford 17:53
conversation. Thank you. Thank you for saying so. Talk about, you're on the board for because you mentioned that the African American Museum. This the Smithsonian you are. Please

Taurean Gordon 18:03
talk about it. Yeah, talk about it. So

Tammy Gordon 18:05
it's been cool this, um, this journey into history and preservation. So I got, two years ago, I got a certification in public history and preservation, my formal education, because I've also worked with young people who, like, we say, you don't need a degree to do the thing. So I'm right now, I'm sitting on the fence of like, Does my degree matter? Just the experience that I have matters. So know that I'm like, reconciling that in real time, but I do have formal training and education and curriculum, and then in marketing, and then I added on this layer of historical preservation and public history. So what did I do with that? I don't know. I just was like, I like this. I like this. I'm gonna keep doing these things. And what does that look like? And it's put me in these really interesting positions to couple all of that experience and have folks say, like, you do some stuff for black folks. You help us reimagine relationship to history and take this really sankofic approach to like, how do we make sure we go back and get it? Like, how do we make sure that that is part of what is stewarding our future? And so the N, H, A, AMC, so the National Museum of African American History culture in DC, the only African American institution that's on the Mall that's part of the Smithsonian umbrella.

Leaha Crawford 19:19
It's free. It's free to get into. Gotta make a

Tammy Gordon 19:23
reservation. You do. It's worth it. It's worth it. There's a slave dwelling behind it. And so there's also, there's just some really important history that Lonnie Bunch, who founded that institution, did a really great job of cap, of capturing and continues to cultivate. But they are, they have an advisory council on supporting the continued interpretation of black history in spaces, especially like DC, where we are violently under attack, and they're bringing historians to the space to be on that council. And I got invited to do that. I love it.

Leaha Crawford 19:53
And for those locally who don't know, Anna Bailey is in the Smithsonian. She is there. She is um. She's been here for a number of years, but she is in the Smithsonian and we very proud moment, and a few other orgs that are there because your Dave nine is there. That's right, that's right there. And yeah, I just, I've been to DC several times, and every time I go, my god, I forgot to make the reservation. Yeah, do need one? I know because, and I keep telling my daughter I was like, the next time I promise we need to go. Because living in DC, you really don't take advantage of the smithsons. Take it for granted. You take it for granted. And it's actually the mall area is gorgeous. The mall area because I thought they said we're going to the mall. It's like, okay, which mall, which? Not knowing that's what they call the Smith the mall, the mall area, all right. Well, that's good to know. So talk to me about what you do with that. Now, you do that for them, but what do you do for

Tammy Gordon 20:46
you? In 2022 we started programs in Nashville, Tennessee. I went to the south. I dragged my husband to all these different places. No drive. We don't drive. Okay, okay, we flew. We flew because we were doing some work and learning about Jefferson Street, which is a very similar sort of Main Street, iconic Street for black businesses, the way Jackson Street is here in Vegas. So we were able to couple our work together to do that. So we flew to Nashville and lots of other places like I took him up and down the eastern seaboard. I took him to the COVID and to Europe to just see these spaces that our ancestors occupied. He wasn't happy. I'm sure he wasn't.

Leaha Crawford 21:25
He said he wasn't. But did you get something out of the tours? Just learning divorce. Now looking back,

Taurean Gordon 21:33
looking back as now, thinking about a visitor that will come to this program that Tammy was putting on, it was in my anger to not go. I wasn't visiting my ancestors. I wasn't allowing them to see what was possible and what has already occurred. So us giving them some voice and memory to not this slave child, but this child that became a mason worker, this child like she changed the voice of it to where my anger became. Oh, all right, hey, family, how y'all doing? Right? So it was I learned so much of our history. I learned how we managed to communicate during those times versus just being in the anger of what was happening to us. So negro

Leaha Crawford 22:15
spirituals has something different for you now, don't they? They mean something different to you. Some corn rolls mean something different to you now, completely different. Mapping System. A mapping system,

Taurean Gordon 22:24
right? Is the secret compartments, because we're the ones that's making the desks, that's doing all the elements of how to the brilliance to survive, the brilliance

Leaha Crawford 22:34
of a man that designed the District of Columbia.

Tammy Gordon 22:38
Okay, it's, you know, Greenwood Seneca has got these three entities. So we've got Seneca Real Estate Services, which is our government contracting work and real estate development work. We've got the brick TV, and we have the foundation, and we purchased a historically black real estate development and right of way company that we've now sort of repositioned and rebranded as Seneca real estate services. And so we're going into these communities that are being impacted by so many things, by large infrastructure changes, by gentrification, sometimes just by like blatant removal of people who have occupied these spaces for a long time. And in doing that work, it's just like, do y'all know what was there before, or who is actually there? And the humans that have been in these spaces and buildings for all this time, are we asking them any questions about the history that they have and they share? And so it was a lot of that work that became the impetus for the curiosity around the foundation and trying to reclaim or shift some of that narrative within spaces, particularly that black folks occupied. And so our program, which is your legacy tours, is really a reimagination of historical house. And what we know is like enslavement, camps, plantations, all of the different names that spaces of enslavement were that are tailored for black visitor experiences, it was just like we're going and we have this really particular interest, like we care, we want to honor the ancestors. Our work sits at the intersection of this, but every time we come, y'all are not talking to us. You're talking to somebody else who did not have any connection to those who survived the institution of enslavement. You're trying to re convince me that my identity should be rooted as a slave, instead of rooted as someone who survived it, who loved it, who created and built despite the institution they were a part of. What do you think there was we as black folks don't have a relationship to our history. We don't have a relationship or trust. Maybe it's that Julia, that it's the it's the trust with institutions to tell our story. So we don't go right, so we're not going to explain. Home, we're not going to x space of history, because we don't trust that they're actually going to tell us the right story. And therefore they don't have to, they don't have to tell us. They don't have to include our story, or include our narrative. And

Leaha Crawford 25:12
that's interesting that you say that, because when you think about the history of what you learned, that's a lot of it, and that's why I'm a big proponent of us just going out and getting the information right, getting good information right. And just know that as you learn, you know everything you learn might not be true, yet, maybe forget all of it. Something learning, the unlearning, but, and unlearning is hard, right? It's hard. It's hard, you know? But the truth of the matter is, we were slaves, a lot of us, but not all of us. A lot of us were and we come from different areas of the country. We live in different areas of the country. Now, I know some families that have done their ancestry and have started doing big family reunions to start telling the stories within their families. And it's just ironic to hear the stories and to see that it wasn't all bad. I mean, it wasn't, I mean, it was bad, but it wasn't all bad. Like you said, we still had to love tuck the babies in, and we still have families, right? We still have families all right. Well, this is growth and grace. I'm Leah Crawford. This is Julian Rosado, and we are here with Tammy and Tory and Gordon. I want to tell you, it has been absolutely amazing talking to you. We want to get into the real estate development. We got about two minutes cool. So let's talk about that real quick, because Tammy is Tammy. Tammy. I should just called you. I'm sorry. I should have just called you. We're here. We're here. I'm so sorry. No, no, no, actually, Tammy, thank you, because I think having the conversation across all platforms is important, because we know everybody else's story, but our story is told by somebody else, right? But now you know, and not always, because there are some people out there telling it, but there's not enough people telling it for us to really get it right? No, because I've heard you guys have taken some interesting trips. All right, y'all have to, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna talk to you offline about that, though, because I need, I need to come on one of those. But go ahead.

Taurean Gordon 27:11
So now putting a ball around this for how is it relevant? Okay, if you are not from Las Vegas, most people have no idea about little Harlem, about Jackson Street, about the historic west side? Yes. And as a divine timing for us, the first development project I did in Atlanta with HJ Russell, the largest black owned construction firm, was called historic west side. And there's just this piece of what are we doing from a real estate perspective? It's prepare the historic west side for the development that's coming. Ensure that we preserve its story, preserve the owners that are there, and build what is possible. So in everything that we talk about now, we're doing a curriculum for develop the developer, which is going to be for those that live, work and pray in historic west side. And this is the mission, and that's how it all comes back to Vegas. This story is being repeated state by state, and we're excited for what the unique opportunity is here in Las Vegas and for what we can do on the historic west side. And I'm

Leaha Crawford 28:09
going to have to end with that, but I'm going to bring you back, because we're going to start there and talk about what that program looks like. How do people get involved? And probably bring you back real soon, because I guess you guys are coming back here frequently, right? Absolutely. Okay, so we're gonna bring you back on because I really want to delve into that to see how we get involved and what's about to happen on the historic west side. All right, so you've been listening to growth and grace. I'm Leah Crawford. This is Julian Rosado, and I want to tell you that that's a wrap for us today. Thank you for sharing your time with me. I truly appreciate it. Remember, growth is a journey, and grace makes it worth your while. Keep pushing forward, keep showing up, and most importantly, keep giving yourself Grace until next time. I am Leah Crawford, Miss Julie Ross and we'll talk to you next week. Bye. You.