Welcome to Karen Hunter is awesome.

And in this space, we have conversations that very few people have.

I love nuance, but more than nuance.

I really like to think deeply about the conditions that we find ourselves in every day.

And this is what this space is all about. So come on in. Leave your judgment and your closed

mindedness at the door. Open your heart. Open your mind and come on in and challenge yourself

to think more broadly. Hope you enjoy. She is an award-winning author. Her book is Call and

Response 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church. We're going to get through a few of them today.

The rest of them, you're going to have to get the book to read. Let me welcome.

Advisor, Coach, et cetera, extraordinaire. L. Michelle Smith, welcome.

Thank you so much, Karen. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm excited.

Oh, thank you for coming. You know, when you said call and response, I said, okay, well, all right, I'm here for it. I'm here for it.

I know this book is inspired by your experience in the black church. And we were talking a little bit off mic, and you said there's a difference between the black church

and churches that have black people?

Yes, ma'am.

What's the difference?

Well, it isn't about race, first of all.

It's about culture.

And the black church tradition is rooted in a culture

that goes all the way back to slave times.

So these are the churches that started down by the riverside because they needed to go into the dark of night to worship

away from their slave masters, those enslavers that actually had them in church if they allowed

...