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Author, Listening To the Spirit Within (ROMAR Media Group 2007);
Commentator for TV One Cable Network;
Also host of "The Roland S. Martin Show" on WVON-AM/1690 in Chicago;
Appearing on a variety of shows, including "The Situation Room," "Anderson Cooper 360," "Lou Dobbs Tonight," and many others;
2007- Essence Magazine as a special correspondent, writing a bi-monthly column and a daily blog on Essence.com.
CBN.com – Dubbed as the man with "fresh perspective for the 21st century," Roland Martin says he wants to challenge the church to look outside of its four walls and go out into the world. Roland uses the media platform that he has been given to challenge the Church body to not be content with the status quo.
He is calling people to come to action in their communities and in their everyday lives. Roland says as Christians we stay in the confines of the church building. The Church as a body needs to be speaking our ideas outside of the box, broaden its focus, and change how we reach people. As Christians we tend to want to beat people over the head with God. The church is divided on many issues.
For example, most people might think the Evangelical church is about fighting the issues of homosexuality and abortion and those aren't the only two issues. Roland believes that it is more important for Christians to work on and save heterosexual marriages since the divorce rate in the church is high. Also, there is no black or white message. Jesus' message has to be the ultimate message. Christians have to truly see themselves and how they impact society. Christians are ordinary people with an extraordinary God. We don't need to be a famous preacher like Billy Graham to make a difference. A person can do something wherever they are. Men need to be accountable and children can be witnesses for Jesus Christ too.
LISTEN TO THE SPIRIT WITHIN
Roland's new book, Listen To the Spirit Within challenges people to make changes in their lives. A few of his perspectives, like "Shut up, Get up and Go," "Get Involved," "Shake it Up," and "Fight for Your Healing," and "Spiritual Graduation" urge Christians to take proactive measures. He would like for people to just move. Doing God's will is our first priority. True Spiritual prosperity is having a wealth of peace and a wealth of favor from God, which may not always mean material wealth.
ABOUT ROLAND
Born November 14, 1968 in Houston, Texas, Martin was inspired to follow a career in journalism by his father, an avid newspaper reader and fan of television news. In 1987 Martin graduated from Houston’s Jack Yates High School in a magnet program devoted to communications. He went on to study journalism at Texas A&M University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1991. Martin landed a job at the Austin American-Statesman and started his journalism career at a basic level, covering county government and neighborhood news. In 1992 he covered the Republican National Convention for the paper and was sent to Louisiana to file reports from the area devastated by Hurricane Andrew.
Moving on to the larger Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Martin helped cover the fatal standoff mounted by the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas, in 1993 and the 1995 right-wing terrorist bombing of the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, federal building. His coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing earned him an award from the Managing Editors group of the Texas Associated Press, the first of more than 20 journalism awards he would receive. Martin covered Fort Worth’s City Hall and began to expand his range as a writer, contributing sports, and news columns to the paper. Martin worked as a morning reporter for all-news radio station KRLD in Dallas and then moved to black oriented KKDA, where he served for three years, from 1995 to 1998, as news director and morning anchor.
He also did sports reporting there, earning a 1997 award from the National Association of Black Journalists. While at KKDA, Martin broke a story involving drug possession charges being leveled against former Dallas Cowboys player Michael Irvin. Martin, KKDA general manager Chuck Smith told the Chicago Tribune, “was like a pit bull. He demanded a lot, but he mainly wanted to see other people succeed.”
The chance to revitalize a publication and put his own stamp on it lured Martin back to the world of print journalism. He became managing editor of the black-oriented Dallas Weekly and led the paper’s staff to local, state, and national journalism awards. Later Martin served in the same position at the Houston Defender. From there, Martin branched out into an impressive variety of journalistic activities. He seemed to be trying to become black journalism’s "Renaissance man." He became a founding editor of radio personality Tom Joyner’s Black America Web site, returned to radio himself as a news correspondent for the American Urban Radio Network and as a sports commentator on Washington, D.C., radio station WOL’s “Fifth Quarter Program,” and launched the ROMAR Media Group in Dallas as an umbrella company encompassing his various activities, which included marketing consultancies for various media organizations.
ROLAND'S COLUMN
In the early 2000s, Martin became news editor for the new Savoy magazine, a New York-based publication focusing on African-American lifestyles. Martin became a familiar face and voice, not only within the sphere of National Public Radio’s "Tavis Smiley Show," but also on the Cable News Network (CNN) and on Fox television’s conservative-oriented "O’Reilly Factor." In 2002, Martin began writing a column of his own. It was picked up by the nationally distributed Creators Syndicate and ran in such major newspapers as the Detroit News, Denver Post, and Indianapolis Star.
Married to a minister and author, the Rev. Jacquie Hood Martin, Martin had a strong interest in Christian issues himself. He pursued a master’s degree at Louisiana Baptist University and experienced a rare taste of failure in 1993 as he purchased a small Christian newspaper in Dallas and tried to turn it around. The paper folded within a year, but Martin gained experience that would help him deal with a much larger turnaround project. In 2004, Martin was hired as a consultant by the Chicago Defender, a 99-year-old daily paper that had played a vital role in the civil rights revolution of the middle twentieth century.
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