europe and with our allies on the ground. we can provide arms and support to the kurdish independent autonomous zone which will provide an effective counter. the reason they were having trouble is actually they acquired american weapons in the black market and from the battlefield acquisitions. ..

this administration has always been caught off-guard by one thing or another, whether it is isis or ebola. it is always caught off guard, and we are always reactive. a lot of these problems happen because we have retreated as a world leader, and when we retreat as a world leader -- world leader , we leave a vacuum. you can be certain that vacuum will be filled by someone much less benevolent than we are. this is the president to calls the isis at the junior varsity, the president who makes all of his decisions by polling data rather than military information from his military strategists and military leaders on the ground. isis is continuing to gain strength, and our president is telegraphing to the enemy what we will and will not to. what kind of the military strategy is that?

senator merkely has said nothing, has not held the president accountable, and is just rubber-stamp thing these policies. we need safety and security for our children here in the united states. the fourth 30 seconds to respond. merkely: it is why it is so important that we have partisan division. this issue, we need to work together to take on this terrorist threat and terrorist threats around the world. there is no question that there will be extreme elements today and tomorrow, but we must be thoughtful and careful and work in close coordination with allies and use the right tools at the right moment and not repeat the mistakes we had in iraq during the first were going to war on false premises pay for the next question. >> one of you is in congress, one of you is running for congress. what do you most disliked

and like about the united states congress? wehby: i think the problem that we are seeing now with congress is this extreme polarization. we are not moving the ball forward. we are not getting anything done. my opponent here is the poster boy for polarization. he votes 98 percent of the time with his party, does just what he is told to do. he is very ideological. i would be a very logical center, a very rational center, not one who is just a strict ideologue also, he was rated the most extreme senator by the national journal. we all know when you are on one extreme or the other, you are never present when the problems are solved because people think you are so far out there you can not be part of the discussion.

we need someone with common sense, who will put oregon and the united states above the political party, above their own career. that is the problem with career politicians. all they care about is getting reelected, doing what they are told, and climbing up in the hierarchy. that is why i support term limits. merkely: congress is the first bench of the constitution, the first among three coequal branches because it is the people's branch, symbolizes that we, the people, the first three words of the constitution. what i like about it is it can in its best section be a thorough place to be vague and partner in define strategies to take on important issues facing us here in america. what i dislike most is what i found is when i went to the u.s. senate it was not the senate i knew when i was an intern in the 1970's, not even the senate i knew in the 1980's.

what i found is that it is deeply polarized and paralyzed as an institution. during the time that lyndon b. johnson was first leader of the senate, there was one filibuster in six years. for harry reid 281. filibuster means piracy. unlocking the body from being able to debate amendments and get to final vote and to address the problems we face in america. this is why i take on leaders in the u.s. senate and produced the first major rule change in 39 years to restore the ability of advice and consent as envisioned in the constitution. al qaeda it is funny that senator merkely brings up filibuster reform because that is the one piece of legislation that has caused him to be quite unpopular with very many senators in the senate as we speak now. this filibuster reform

allows a simple majority to override the will of the minority, and the senate is supposed to be a deliberative body with input from both sides, not one where one side simply overruns the other. think he will regret that when they are in the minority next year, but he won't be there because i will. >> moderator: the next question is for senator merkely. >> your opponent brought up term limits. tell us what you think about that idea. merkely: well, back when the oregon voters adopted term limits i thought that was a pretty interesting idea because it might create new blood and new turnover, and then i witnessed what happened. it shifted power from elected individuals to the lobby. the lobby became the institutional voice in the oregon legislature. we no longer have term limits in oregon. the court threw them out as a violation of the constitution, and i can tell you that the proper

authority should rest with the elective, not with the lobbyists, special interests, that is something -- and is once again sets out the framework i am talking about. my opponent is taking the position the lobbyists want for the powerful special interests. they are the institutional machine rather than the people elected by the people to represent their views. we have an appropriate form called an election. here in oregon i encourage everyone to vote and weigh in, no matter what your perspective because we need citizens to participate in democracy. -- a chance to respond. wehby: you know, the problem with career politicians is they get beholden to special interest groups. and senator merkely knows this full well because he is funded by several extreme groups. our founding fathers did not have to put term limits and

to the constitution because nobody wanted to go. i mean, they had to make you go do time as a congressman or senator because everybody had their own job and things they have going on. and i think that's a good thing about having term limits is that we bring people in from different backgrounds instead of career politicians that are, year after year, just legislating. we bring people in with different backgrounds, like doctors. there are only three doctors in the senate now. tom coburn is about to retire. there will only be too. that is why it is important i get there. we need people with science backgrounds, education backgrounds so that they have something to contribute when they get to the senate. >> moderator: response. merkely: i think that we can see the power that comes from learning a craft, whether it be my opponents

craft of surgery or the work on taxes. he has worked over many terms not to become a master of his role, and he is now the chairman of the senate finance committee. to take on and address these difficult tax issues on the finance committee without a lot of experience and steady, you would not be able to take on the powerful special interests and say this is right and this is wrong. >> moderator: time for our last question which goes to dr. monica wehby. >> landowners could be forced to have the pacific connecter pipeline on their land as part of the project. do you support this project? what is your message to home owners that are affected? wehby: i think that if it can be done safely and in an environmentally friendly, conscious way that it is good to have the jobs for oregon economy. i think that our energy

policy has to look at all different types of energy, that we have to have an all of the above approach, and i think energy independence is also very important. as hard and difficult for us to have to be dependent upon countries that hate us for our energy supply, and i also think that this is a great opportunity for us to grow our economy and to keep costs low for energy for our middle-class and working families. they are the ones who are hit the hardest by increases in energy prices, and i think that is the most important thing is that we become energy independent and then we can keep energy costs low that helps us grow businesses, helps our economy thrive. >> moderator: senator. merkely: people all know i am very concerned about curbing pollution and opposed the keystone pipeline that can create hundreds of thousands of

jobs through the rebuild america act. this project is different, and i do support it. there will be one outlet on the west coast for natural gas, and that 6 billion or so in infrastructure or development should happen here in oregon strengthening debate. i can tell you, i am concerned about the pipeline strategy. i want to see it on public land, not private land. i want to be sure there is no imminent of rain -- eminent domain involved and homeowners are paid an amount that they are willing to have it on their land, the incredibly generous, not concerned about the safety of the pipeline. but walls in places that may not be appropriate. he needs to be safe and here i might add that we should absolutely be aware that carbon dioxide is working to us all to our rural resources. in this case, however, natural gas can help replace

coal in china and help make the situation better. >> moderator: response. wehby: i think it is important we protect our environment, and i think that we have done an excellent job of doing that with some of our epa regulations. i do think it is important, though, that we don't at excessive regulations that would at a cost of 1200-$1,700 per family per year. that is very difficult for some of our working families to afford, an additional $100 per year. when the economy is in better shape we can look at these options. >> moderator: very good. that concludes the debate portion of our program. it is time for our closing six. -- closing statements. wehby: tonight you have seen two different paths for oregon and america. senator merkely says that he cares about the middle class, but the truth is our middle class family incomes

have dropped by $3,000 per year, our energy and health care costs have skyrocketed. more oregonians went on food stamps then found a job. our middle-class families are suffering the most, and that wall street has never had it so good. you know, when parents handed me their little, precious baby to take to the operating room i am accountable for that little life. it is time that we held senator merkely accountable for his decisions. we have gotten so used to incompetence and dishonesty in our federal government that we are not even surprised by it anymore. we are told that we have got to get used to this new normal, but i do not believe that. i think we can and must do better, get our economy back on track, get oregon back to work, and keep our country safe and secure.

if you like the direction we are going, vote for senator merkely, but if you think we need a change in direction you'd need to change your senator. i'm dr. monica wehby, and ask for your vote. merkely: thank you kobi and thank you, dr. monica wehby. this is a clear choice between two very different views. do we allow the rich to control or do we give every american a fair shot? i am fighting for a fair shot for all and the success of the middle-class our top priority. that is why i wrote the law that shuts down the wall street's casino endangering our economy, the law that banned the predatory teaser rate mortgages, and fighting to reform the broken senate so that powerful special interests cannot use the filibuster has a veto any investments in infrastructure and education it is an honest assessment

we have to keep going to end subsidies to companies that ship our jobs overseas, to nurture manufacturing because if we do not make things in america we will not have a middle-class in america. if you share this vision of a nation of, buy, and for the people, not by and for that special interest, as for your support and i ask for your vote. thank you, and good night. >> moderator: that includes tonight's u.s. senate debate. on behalf of everyone here i would like to thank you very much for participating and our viewers for watching. we hope you join us again for a life gubernatorial debate. that is next monday at 7:00 p.m. only on nbc5. a replay of this debate can be found on line. please do not forget to vote in the november 4th election. good night.

[applause] >> the 2014 midterm election just over one week away, c-span campaign debate coverage continues. today at 7:00 p.m. eastern the illinois senate debate followed at 8:00 with live coverage of the massachusetts governor debate. then at 9:00, a georgia senate debate. at 10:00 the minnesota senate debate. then at 11:00 p.m. eastern, the hawaii governors' debate . tuesday evening at 8:00, the new jersey senate debate. wednesday night at 8:00 live coverage of the louisiana senate debate between three candidates. at 9:00, the main senate debate with senator susan

collins. end at 10:00 the texas senate debate. c-span campaign 2014, more than 100 debates for the control of congress. >> tonight president and ceo of the wireless association >> this process, the lessons learned have really been learned. it is going wonderfully. the spectrum was paired with international harmony, 65 megahertz. we are so excited. and we will turn around and have the incentive auction. that discussion is going well. we have a report which the fcc put out which values the spectrum. those numbers have turned the discussion from a policy discussion to a business decision, which is where the

discussion needed to turn to, so we are excited about both options and certain that our carriers will come to them with big check books, and it is going to be a win-win situation for everyone. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> next, a portion of the annual women of color empowerment conference from fort lauderdale. this is about two hours and 15 minutes. >> our first speaker has worked in the technology industry for more than 25 years. she has spent most of her career serving as a partner and cio, senior vice

president with simmons market research, in 2004 she and her partner sold the business to a leading global information services company she is currently co-leading global software development teams in north america, xhosa rica, mel bourne australia, and malaysia. please welcome teefor. thank you. [applause] >> good morning. good morning. thank you so much for that introduction. i had to look around to see who she was talking about. i first want to think the organizers for extending the invitation for me this morning. thank you for this opportunity. i want to say that i am empowered already by looking at all of you this morning.

you all look fabulous, and especially for an early morning on a saturday. so fantastic. i do want to say that i am a fort lauderdale natives born right here, attended the public school. if there are any titans in the house -- [applause] so that was many, many, many years ago. many, many ago i was also on the drill team. so i will take you guys off of memory lane. so for a few minutes this morning what i will do is discuss a topic that has been floating around and getting a lot of attention, especially this past week. as you know, the internet has multiple layers of content that we all access every day. video, social media, word

files, all of this information, which is a wealth of information every single day. however, this access is being threatened by opponents of net neutrality. so what is net neutrality? net neutrality, in its most basic form, gives everyone equal access to the power of the internet. in other words, it preserves our ability to communicate freely on line. so just to step back for a moment, what if the phone company told you who you could call and what you could say on the phone? that would not go over too well, what it? so what is happening similarly on the internet, there is legislation that can, if he goes through, censored

their content and sensor what you do on the internet. so companies like comcast corporation at&t, based telecom companies, these are the companies that want to these rules to go through. let me step back. the cable companies recently have been lobbying the government to destroy net neutrality. the basic underlying principle that has made really the internet so awesome, one of the journalists on this topic says -- and i think he puts it well, that this is a power grab. it is the behemoths that wants to lock down the internet and turn it much in the way that cable-tv is run think about direct tv, all of those services. some of them have the

hallmark channel, some not. the same thing could happen to the internet. they will decide what content should see, what content your business can push as of net neutrality particularly forceful with stealth and entrepreneurs rely upon the internet to lost business to trenton this to foster job growth, competition, and innovation. net new catholic orders that. cut it insures that the flying field is leveled.

it is because of net neutrality that small businesses and entrepreneurs have been able to thrive on the internet and showcased the kids. there should keep that company that interferes with this open market place. the internet service providers, by definition, are the gatekeepers of the internet to fit into as gatekeepers, the 438 path. with so without that neutrality companies like kugel, the eskimo that will not be possible. those companies would not be able to afford the fees that these particular companies would get for up charge of usage of the internet. so what is being done about it? i don't know if you all

know, but on this past wednesday, september 10th, several of the more popular web sites, like netflix, what they did was, they displayed a spinning circles on their website, similar to the what you see when trying to download video and it is taking some time. what we were trying to do was bring attention to what would happen if the internet were to be divided into a slow lane and the fast lane. if you have a slow lane your content -- and you are trying to bring down a video, you can sit there and wait and wait and wait for your content. of course, you will be frustrated and would want to then go to the fast lane, but that would cost you so that you could now get that content. that is some of the things we have to stay out in front of to be sure that we are

fighting those folks who want to, in essence, hijack our ability to access the internet in a free state. so this got the attention of millions of users and businesses that were redirected to a website, and i will tell you as well. it was called battle for the next. and this site was used to flood the decision makers with comments, e-mails, and phone calls on this issue. it is one, again, that we have to stay in front tough because we can ill afford for their to be internet discrimination, a slow lane and a fast lane. we can ill afford content censoring, content blocking and slowdown. so the unstoppable momentum of this internet slowdown is just a reflection of the

public outcry that has been simmering since the fcc first announced its proposal to allow for a divided internet. and if we think about it, it is actually more than about how fast your data comes through. history has shown that if a system can be used to sensor and marginal lines, it will be used to do just that. net neutrality is the secret ingredient that makes the web a level playing field where everyone has a voice. it is said that all websites are created equal and that you should have reliable access to every single thing that the web has to offer, whether you are clicking on links to your favorite news website also looking at cat

videos, whatever it is that you do, your political bloc, whatever it is, you should have the right to access it freely. to highlight one of the actions on this, in the united states in january of 2014 this year the u.s. court of appeals said a regulatory framework of net neutrality back to the fcc plan means that the commission hasn't unleashed its authority of barring a brand -- broadband service providers from blocking selected content. in other words, the court was saying, the framework intended to ensure that these carriers treated all content on an equal and nondiscriminatory basis was beyond the authority of the fcc in this context with his ruling from an individual

and business standpoint we now do not have any legal protections in place that will prevent up charges for access of specialized content of the internet. the opposition to these changes and the public outcry have kept these actions at bay for nearly 20 years. this really is not a new issue. it goes back to 1996. fighting on the issues, but the cable companies and at&t and all of those companies as they grow and get bigger, it becomes more of a threat. so we must continue to fight, to retain our right to the internet as we know them today. thank you so much for your time. [applause]

>> thank you very much. that was very, very informative. our next speaker is superintendent robert runcie. his journey has been filled with hard work and perseverance. born in jamaica and moved to the united states as a young boy, the first member of his family to attend college. the college he attended was harvard. before jumping into the education world, he was the manager of aim management and consulting company. he joined the chicago public school where he served in various strategic roles including chief information officer and in october of 2011 he was appointed as the 20th superintendent of the public-school system. he is leading an effort right now -- he can't tell you this, but i will -- to

really give schools to the place they need to be in terms of technology and the like. there is a bond up. we are asking voters to support. so without further ado, we bring superintendent robert runcie up. please give him a warm welcome. [applause] >> could morning, everyone. dissing q, burnadette norris-weeks. it is a pleasure to be here with all of you lovely ladies. and i see dr. osgood, one of the school board members. a great, inspirational father four children, social justice, economic opportunity for the community. [applause] for our county is definitely forcing us to provide.

we are off to another great year. we have about 2,603,000 students in the district, and they continue to do very well. i can tell you, our last graduating class in june, 16,000 students graduated earning over $125 million in scholarships. they were number one in the state of florida for awards, honors, and it advanced placements. number two in the country for african-american students who score in placement exams and number one for hispanic students, said doing quite well there. [applause] and we have some exciting new initiatives this year. we have the largest scholastic test program in the nation. about 34,002nd and third graders are actually

learning tests as part of their math program to enhance their analytical skills in every single elementary school. [applause] the largest debate program in the entire country. every single one of our high schools, rolling out to every middle school, and it brings a lot of different disciplines together, research, the ability to write, to figure out and analyze situations, develop pros and cons, present and defend ideas. we reinstated middle school athletics. all of our middle schools -- [applause] volleyball and football. we have developed a partnership with the first -- we have the largest program teaching our kids computer science. over 1600 students in high

schools who signed up for that this year. i have heard a lot since i arrived in this district about creating more options for students and families. so this year we opened our first set. we continue to turn around some of our startling schools in our community. last year we went from a process championed by doctor osgood. we transformed a number of our schools. [applause] the highest of any school in the district moving from ib2 and a in a single year. [applause] so we are getting it done. we are getting it done. and part of what helps me get my job done that i am so lucky to have with me here this morning, the most dynamic and fabulous

empowered woman i know, my wife, diana. stand up please. [applause] she is absolutely the rock of the family. raising our $3 -- three daughters while i spend time working. a couple of weeks ago we became empty nesters, as we send our youngest three daughters off to college. she is at princeton. we are fortunate for that. i have a second daughter. [applause] and the the first has graduated. a proud moment for us, as i reflect on that and my journey and lessons i have received from god and really feel fortunate to be in front of you today. what inspires me to do the work that we do, to give every single one of our

children the same opportunity i had, the same opportunities my daughter has come to get a great education, to have an opportunity to go out and change the world. it would -- it should not matter what your parents do for a living, what zip code you live in, or what your races. education is the great equalizer, and every student should have the opportunity for success. every student should have the opportunity to dream about becoming a doctor, lawyer, engineer, a great teacher : a successful business owner, superintendent or state legislature. and every child should not just want to play video games but be able to create them. the key to all of this is teachers. teachers are the key. 75 percent of our nation's three the half million teachers are women. in many ways women control the destiny of this country.

and i look at some of the great things that women have done in our schools to really transform lives. i think about my own situation. but my oldest daughter, when she graduated from college she decided to teach. and she was working at a high-school, miami-dade, miami gardens, many of you may know. teaching biology. they had a pretty low pass rate in the course biology exams, route 25%. she has moved into about an 83 percent pass rate. [applause] a lot of it really boils down to just really have developed relationships with kids. i know that we talk about reading, writing, math. those of the basics, but we

do something special beyond that, helped develop human beings, human potential. and it starts with the relationship they have with the individual and their school. you have to the love your kids first. she certainly translated into results. what our students to learn to be critical thinkers. we have to invest in our future. it will not be possible at all for the united states to compete in a hyper connected , global economy if we continue to recruit our teachers from the lower ranks of high-school graduates, train them poorly , and with far less thing that i respected professionals like lawyers and doctors, and accountants, for example. holding teachers accountable for the performance of american students under such conditions is not fair and quite frankly foolish.

we cannot test our way into excellence. we need policies designed to compensate, recruit, train and educate, develop, and retain our teachers, as we do with other prevention act and provide them with professional working conditions. that current accountability system, for example, has many challenges. and i will highlight some of them. first, student results on standardized tests in this state make up 50 percent of teacher evaluation and ultimately personnel decisions. most states are half of that number. why is florida at 50%? the answer i get is, well, you know, one day we will put this into place. there were going to be tough and naked 50%.

most states are half of this number. we can start by reducing this component to 25 percent which will put it in line with what is in most places. secondly, we need to have a more diverse set of measures in order to get a true picture of teacher performance and what areas of support that they need. accountability systems need to be about helping students and teachers to get better, rather than being punitive. we need an evaluation system that can incorporate. i believe you need to take into account student achievement, of course. the other one is administrator observation, the principals, assistant principals, and others do their work as being instructional leaders at the school, but i am a strong believer in evaluations where teachers can actually monitor and help and support and evaluate their colleagues and, finally, if

you want to find out what is wrong in the classroom, go ask students. a student surveys, especially high school and middle school can be part of the equation. the consequences of a singular and myopic focus on accountability and testing in this country has resulted in a significant narrowing of the curriculum for our students down to a handful of subjects, resulting in low teacher morale and dwindling applications to schools of education. and some other recent forecasts that we have -- and this is true across the country, a big wave of retirements over the next five to ten years. and if you couple this with the fact that about 50 percent of teachers leave the profession within five years, you have a perfect storm of disaster. where is the next set of qualified teachers calling

to come from? and our low-income and minority students will be hardest hit. we cannot allow this to happen. so what is the alternative? i will offer five ideas today. first, and said that placing our bets on teacher evaluations and who needs to be dismissed, let's identify the need for teachers and focus on development. there is no alternative pipeline of great teachers out there, experienced teachers that will be showing up. so our strategy has got to be, how do we focus on making our current teachers, average teacher's in some cases, much better? how can we build critical thinking skills and capacity to engage students so that they are excited? secondly, we have to create a cadre of master teachers who are highly motivated to help years and other teachers improve their level

of confidence and competence . third, instead of testing all of our students every year, our students should take tests only at main gates in their careers. fifth grade, when they leave elementary school, eighth grade in 12th grade. i believe these tests should be of higher quality than what we have now and should cover a wide range of the kind of skills that allowed demand in the marketplace. we could supplement this by introducing other tests in the off years, but just sampling. this is what they do in other countries, like finland which consistently ranks on top of the world. by the way, the millions of dollars saved from doing all this testing could be invested in teacher salaries and -- [applause] and to make the profession

more attractive and bring different people to it. the fourth thing i would say is, you have to create incentives to attract strong teachers and principals. the state will need to step up and provide funding and resources, and like what they do now with unfunded mandates. we have had about 31 of those schools on that list, and these are the schools that scored lowest. this will cost us about $5 million to go and add the extra hour to the day, but no funding came with that. finally, i would say, we have to create conditions for a high level of collaboration among teachers where they can learn from each other to improve their competence and the achievement of their students. we want to make more time in the day so as professionals they can collaborate, used data and information to drive strategies and learn from each other. so what we're doing today does not work. we have seen only

incremental results, so let's try new ideas, which are working in other parts of the world those are just some of my initial thoughts on where we need to go. if you're going to improve the quality of education in this country you have got to focus on teachers and making it a profession, creating the conditions for success because when teachers succeed, students succeed. burnadette norris-weeks had mentioned the school bond referendum, that general bond on the november ballot. and one of the things that i can tell you is that this is something that we have in our power right now to change the quality of working conditions in the tools we provide to teachers and students. far too often we see leaking roofs, classrooms with buckets between desks, h. v.

ac systems that are not working, single point of entry projects that are not completed and computers that are more than eight years old and too slow to run applications. we believe our students deserve better than this, so we put on our general obligation bond referendum on november 4th for our community to invest in our students. so i would like to have everyone here go out and make sure you do the right thing on november 4th and give us the resources so that we can invest in our kids and provide the environment where they can be successful. my time is up. [laughter] i just want to thank you. i have to leave and rushed out to meet with art county pta to talk about the bond referendum. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> thank you, superintendent robert runcie. that was a hot topic. and we have, continuing that hot topic we have another school superintendent who is leading one of the largest school systems and school districts here in the nation, actually the fourth largest school distt.is alberto. he has served as the superintendent miami-dade county schools since september of 2008. he is a nationally recognized expert on education transformation and finance. he has successfully elevated his miami-dade school district academic profile, which is now widely considered one of the nation's highest performing urban school systems.

he has served as president of the association of latino administrators as superintendent and was selected as florida's 2014 superintendent of the year. [applause] so we welcome dr. alberto cavalho. thank you. [applause] >> well, good morning, everybody. it is a pleasure to be with you today and an honor to follow my colleague, superintendent robert runcie, who i believe is doing fantastic and transform of work right here in brouwer county. [applause] the bond referendum, we passed one in 2012, a $1 billion bond at a time when people were opposed to taxes and in a community that had just house to the mayor for increasing taxes. that community rewarded as for the passage of a bond with 70 percent approval

rating. they did that because we increased graduation rates above surrounding districts and the state of florida, particularly for african-american and hispanic students, higher graduation rates in the national average for those same groups. we got the nobel prize in urban education making has the highest performing urban district in the country for narrowing the gap between minority and non minority students. [applause] and then the college boards recognized the highest performing district for doing two things. number one, dramatically increasing the participation of minority students, again african-american and hispanic and advanced placement courses. at the same time we dramatically increased participation usually scores

stink. hours did not. we put more kids in this high level, rigorous program, and more students than ever before passed, which means that if you build it they will come. there is no excuse for low performance. build high performing schools and programs, incentivize student participation. and if you have the right principals and teachers in front of these children, they shall achieve. [applause] now, i was asked to come here today and speak about a topic that i thought was interesting considering the group, which was immigration i will touch on that a little bit because i think any time we have a chance to speak for children who are often voiceless, for agile, whether born here into poverty or arrived here out of poverty, i don't pass up them that opportunity. and i do so for two reasons. number one, you may be able to tell that i speak with an

accent. i am an immigrant to this country. i came here when i was 17 years old alone from a nation of poverty out of a family of six kids, the only one to graduate high school. i knew because of my social condition and my country my journey of education would have been over there. why? my father and mother both had no more than a third grade education. my father was a custodian, and i am proud of that. my mother was a seamstress, and i am proud of her as well. [applause] so when they talk about pork kids and when they talk about immigrant kids, i am getting tired of listening to people speaking about poverty when they know nothing about it, and i am tired that people who do not understand the immigrant journey speaking about it when they did not experience it, and i am absolutely tired about people speaking about kids and public

education, many of the home of a want to do is bring about the value of public education itself. [applause] so i come here today with a major degree of anger but also an incredibly helpful about where we will go as a nation. so i believe that the cement that unites all of us, regardless of the language we speak, the got a reprieve to, or the color of our skin , is, indeed privileged to tap public education whether in church or school where i tell i, shoulder to shoulder, children should and are treated the same way with the same level of hope and opportunity that is built a child at a time at the eyes and desperation of a teacher. take it from me, somebody who was not supposed to achieve for succeed, but i am here. it now since i am here no one can shut me down and

shut me off. [applause] so at a time when current company excluded some folks in washington d.c. failed to -- [laughter] my parents had the third grade education, but they were not stupid. some people make that mistake. the quake formal education with wisdom. and you and i know that wisdom is very high often in the minds of people who got rural schooling and is an insult to those who have little schooling but high was done for us to assume otherwise. unfortunately at this point in this country a lot of people are saying a whole lot but doing very little. it seems that empty words dominate the actions and the deeds that should follow them.

and we can refer to that in terms of immigration policy. we can refer to that as far as education policy. we can refer to that as far as economic development. a lot is being said, often little is done, and we ought to recognize and ask the question as to why is that. why is it that superintendent robert runcie has to have our hard time fighting for renovated buildings and technology equality and equity in schools? why is it that we have to page aggressively to bring a restoration of dignity and humanity to classrooms and buildings in our district? why is that? why is that a fight? why is that not a guarantee? is a question in my mind and has been for a long time. we passed the bond for a simple reason, because from supposed to zip code in miami-dade prior to 2012, i could not guarantee that the

level of access that children had to a great building, i great classroom, 21st century technology was the same. and you and i know every single achievement gap, education gap, at little johnny can read at third grade or mary cannot compete by fourth grade or mary cannot write by fifth grade, every single achievement gap is preceded by an opportunity gap. and opportunity gaps, you and i know what they are. that can be many things. opportunity gaps, if not addressed early on, rise up to achievement caps, and achievement gaps, the kid to the fact that kids can not perform academically at par with their grade level, if those gaps are not addressed in time, i know that in those achievements caps become economic and often

generational gaps. so folks to complain about the fact that there is poverty in america and to simply look at the affect, they are foolish for not considering the cost. and they cause is far reaching opportunity gap compounded by the unaddressed achievement gap. how do you turn that? how do you change that? the only way i know how it is by building what i call hope and opportunity, poverty is to be recognized, but it is not an obstacle that cannot be overcome. immigration is to be recognized, but it is not a factor that will determine an outcome for one's origin does not arrest one to a final destiny. that is within our control, but every single child deserves, as a child of god

-- and i am going to get in trouble again because i am a public school superintendent , and every time i mention god someone tells me as a public school superintendent i should not bring god into the conversation. well, that's too bad. [laughter] [applause] i have been saying it for six years, and i have survived because i think god is with me. [applause] but every single child can, in fact, a chief, if given the right tools and the right inspired teaching. so we ought to do a couple of things. number one, acknowledged that teachers have a tough job. let's start there. let's acknowledge that poverty and visibility and language and parental detachment and social blight our realities. let's acknowledge that, keep the fee to the fire of those who are supposed to address those issues and not blame teachers for what they

receive on the first day of school, which is often a child who is supposed to perform at kindergarten level, but you and i know that the awareness and cultural experience and exposure they have is not sufficient. children are often to avoid of the right to parental advice and guidance. they are showing up, what do we do? those are societal ills that mayors, that other elected officials, economic development agencies are supposed to address. and fortunately in our country these days too much blame is placed on the principle and on the teacher for causes that precede them okay? [applause] secondly, i am not calling to let principals and teachers off the hook. now that they are there might take on it is we acknowledge the other issues, but now that they are there, help them, love

them, teach them. no excuses. use all of your expertise. bring your very best every single day and do not allow the factor of poverty to stand as an excuse as to why johnny or mary cannot learn because by the grace of god i am an example that poverty can be overcome. okay? so let me just be very brief in detailing for you what we should not accept. six years ago i came into a school system where we have nine schools, nine schools, and all of them in the inner city with high percentages of african-american students . i will never forget them because the state of florida for as long as there was an accountability system -- and i am not promoting the

accountability system currently in the state of florida. it is flawed and broken. however, for as long as there was one of the schools had never been anything other than an aft. .. we cannot extinguish back extinguish that but with changes things, let me tell you how about this if you principle is not performing, let's understand the circumstances and give them the support and a second chance. but there are no third chances. either you make it or not. and a 75% of the the principles

in miami-dade over the past six years have been replaced. 6,000 teachers contract and i respect teachers. 6,000 teacher contracts have not been renewed because if you have skills that lack wealth to teach my child, then i do not need you in front of my child. [applause] knowing she's going to give me a one minute warning which, knowing that, let's leave it here. the only thing that matters in preserving the democracy is understanding the key factors drive our nation. number one, public education is asking to democracy as the thinking i know.

second, public education is indispensable and third, people are accepting for this rooted ignorance, educated people can check because they are enlightened. as educational, and from a democratic perspective and last, from the economic development perspective. public education is a sacred to us as our constitution and as the fabric of our flag. that's what i fight for, that's why worked towards and that is why no sitting around at the table in what you be leaving. we may all come from different journeys. but our final destination and destiny is but one. equity for all and hope for all.

it begins with one. thank you and god bless you. [applause] you'll have you will have your position for as long as you desire the next speaker we want to move to weaken me to think about issues of immigration and issues of heritage and as an african-american woman i african american woman i think that we can all relate to the fact that we may not be able to go back

many generations. putting together your history and understanding who you are and building your self from the knowledgebase can carry us along way. i want to welcome somebody i've basically fallen in love with these last few weeks she's this amazing woman that has an amazing story to tell not just from a professional standpoint but also from her journey she will share with you today she is chairman and ceo in los angeles limited liability company that is a primary communications business 2005 and from nbc

universal as well as the vice president of the general electric company g. it was in the parent company of nbc u.. during that 22 years with nbc -- nbcu she was general manager of nbc4, the general manager of nbcu telemundo situation and the vice president director of nbc4 new york. her career as a journalist led her to the 1996 peabody award for nbc4 come in new york investigation a license to tell. kill. i could go on and on about paula madison but i will tell you she was selected as one of the 25 most powerful african-americans in corporate america, and in

2013 she was on the list of ebony magazines power 100 list. so, she is certainly a very powerful woman and we are very happy to have her here today in addition to the speakers and the women of color. please welcome paula madison. [applause] spent that morning. i was noting why all sitting there i live in la and i have a familiar connection. my family is jamaican. my father lived here for about 17 years before he passed in 2013. there are so many members of my family here. i feel like it is a little bit home but i want to tell you that

i was almost attracted to what the superintendent was saying about. i want my grandson to get the kind of education for you are all fortunate to have that kind of education for your children. i want to just go back a little bit to my family. we grew up and my parents immigrated to jamaica in 1945. they split when i was very young and that part of my story sort of echoes what my mother's story was. my mother was born to a chinese merchant in jamaica and an african jamaican woman when she was three and my mother and father never saw each other again. my grandfather for those who are

of jamaican incident and never little bit about it my father had a number of shops in jamaica which are referred to as chinese shops. he had a number of those and then in 1933, he moved back to china. most of that is all that i knew until about two years ago. when i retired from nbc universal, i decided i'd do now is fulfill a promise because my mother was always so sad. my mother had a melancholy around her for my entire life and what i knew is that this was because she had been ripped away from her father and grew up in a family in jamaica that devalued her. i am jamaican american, i am chinese-american, i know all that said what about that but i can tell you is that makes no

mistake about it i know that i'm a black woman. [applause] but for many of us, that isn't the end of the story. for many of us there is a lot more that goes into this then you can see on the surface. so, i have a film i would like to show you. when i retired from nbc universal i was very fortunate that my oldest brother that was the genius kid and maybe he started an algorithmic trading company, you don't what that means it means that he taught computers how to trade the financials on the global market. that's what i mentioned last night. we took a portion of that money and we formed a family investment business and what i

also want you to understand is the person and the people that believed in us were our parents have split when we were young. my two brothers and i when we were young. but they insisted there was a reason they came to this country and we were going to fulfill their goal or we were going to die. so this film is a tribute to my mother. i did pull back and my family owned the los angeles basketball team and i was the ceo of the first couple of years and i sold it to magic johnson and in my retirement i guess i became a los angeles police department commissioner so i'm the vice president of the commission these days. [laughter]

>> i did film of this documentary to read my family owns the channel and having said that, i have at my disposal people and equipment. so we documented this search and i wrote a book that goes into much more detail about this entire journey and it is a journey that is not uncommon for a lot of us. i would like you to look at the film, the book will be out in april and then i will explain a lot more. so this is called finding samuel from harlem to china. when i started the search my grandfather's name was samuel low end when i finished i knew that his name was logan. we all know where we are. the best we can do is possibly go back one or two or three

generations and that is about as far as we can go. >> iem not defined by slavery. it was a moment in time of a very long legacy. >> we all grew up in harlem new york which i read later with a level of notoriety of being the worst in new york city. we felt because we were looked at -- >> my grandmother was jamaican and my grandfather was chinese. >> when she was young he left for china and never came back.

>> i decided i would put out and out loud petition to my family. can you help me find my chinese grandfather. my cousin said there are a lot of chinese jamaicans in turn onto a for the conference so i said to my brother's we are going to this and they said okay >> they are seen many places. [inaudible] the family history goes back to 600 bc and i thought -- >> this is her mother and then she was taken back to china with her father. our grandfather would have come here.

>> this is more than i ever hoped for. i knew that it was going to be emotional but it was the fulfillment of my dream. my husband said when you find these people, what are you expecting to have been you know that your black? i know i'm black, i and their family, they are my family, we will be family. >> they come true to finally find people. >> i know that they would want me as much as i want them.

♪ [applause] >> i have two things i think that you'll see particularly as possibly astonishing. so, i went to the conference. the tribe of the chinese. most of the chinese that set up the latin american and even california, they are of a particular kind. in 1854 the first chinese arrived in jamaica and they were originally from northern china and were driven by mongolia south. this is how far back we are talking. most of them today are gathered in the province of china that

most brought up against hong kong, and they are the people that the british abolished slavery in the empire in 1838 they couldn't of course force the africans to work for free anymore, so they started importing and they came into the caribbean and into latin america and came to cut sugarcane. what many of us don't know is that they got to the caribbean for the sugarcane. and when that happened they were only allowing males to come in. for the most part women were not allowed. they got to jamaica and you know what happens. [laughter]

you know what happens. [laughter] so my grandfather fell in love a few times. so they are the ones that are the migratory so that people the people that built the railroads in china are the same people that built the railroad and hand him a. of the people that built the panama canal. so from the 1850s until the 1980s almost all of the chinese that you would encounter in the caribbean whether it is in guyana or pam on our cuba they come from one province. the secret to what i'm telling

you is for the most part that's how you can begin to find your family. once i got that far and i went to this conference in toronto i stood up in front of this group of the 400 chinese people and the senate okay i am trying to find my chinese grandfather's family and for the first time in my entire life from coming usually including the black folks they left like okay. i can't be mixed with chinese and look like this. so they said okay we are going to help you. it turns out that he had the same last name as my mother and grandmother so i said okay you are the only chinese jamaican and they said we've never heard of them, never heard of them.

two weeks later after they send an e-mail to his nephew they send back sent back an e-mail saying i asked my uncle to check with the family to see if anybody know from jamaica because he's my father. almost 100 years later my mother was born in -- almost 100 years later that she was separated over the course of a couple of weeks, they helped me find my family and when i went to china or with one of my girlfriends but also retired from nbc universal if you wonder where they are in the world, they went to china. [laughter] so we can hang out and have a good time and we had a plan and just about a week before is when

i got this e-mail back that my uncle wanted to meet me. so, my 84-year-old uncle, my 86 euro and gold and by 94-year-old aunt came to meet me and my aunt, who couldn't see very well in the video because of the light, but half black and half chinese for father, my grandfather took her to china and she grew up in china pulling me to bring everyone home and to china. [laughter] everyone? home she's squeezing my hand and she said bring them all. i said okay. she said when, because if she is

able with black woman. i said soon and she said when. i said okay. this year. when? december. >> she said that's the last month of the year. it turns out that her birthday is december 23 so my two older brothers and our family and in the course of this i found him on -- bound and on both of those living in harlem and we didn't even know. 20 of us went and what you can kind of get a picture of his they gathered us and met us and welcomed us directly into the family. [applause]

when i tell you that story particularly for those of us by issue at the beginning of the statement about i refuse to accept that i'm defined just as before and after slavery is because it's very limited to think about it that way. i'm not saying that it didn't exist or that it was a worse thing ever but i what i am saying is that we cannot have that remain as an overlay on our brain and hope to overcome. we cannot keep using that as the reason why we just heard. i am not saying that it didn't have the worst effect possible on us as a people. now, when i got there and i learned that my family is the largest ... it is a 300 room village in china and in 1996 the

government turned the entire village into the largest museum in china so when you go there there is a computer the size of a table table and if you wave your hand across the screen, the virtual pages turn and my family is documented history and family chuck d. and the computer goes back to 1,000 bc. so 3,000 years ago every generation is lifted and documented and so of course as a former journalist, you know what happens. women are just appearing debacle to the story. women are added and i was like well that's not going to work. [laughter] so, i presented our entire family and within about two

months, one of my first cousins who is brilliant and wrote the book to now include my mother that happens to be the oldest of my grandfather's children to these black chinese have now worked their way into the book. it took him you come from a family of entrepreneurs at this point we are starting a couple of businesses. we export to china and we export to china for obvious reasons. there are about 40 of us.

my brothers and i grew up with no relatives and we now have 40 of us in the multinational corporation that includes those of us from china and jamaica and australia and canada and the united states and the united kingdom. we brought in the next generation to teach them how to run a multinational business and that is what we are about and so as far as the other thing that may surprise you a little bit and i spoke about this last night, our family surname is low for defending depending what language it was translated to it can be spelled different ways. the british agents that would have returned my grandfather's name he would have said my name was logan and my name is samuel

lowell. but in our family it is spelled lowe, lowle. so i family of this name is lowe and all of the women in my generation have a name and it is few. the significance of what what i'm about to tell you as i mentioned last night we ended up being devalued in so many ways. they named me happiness and the importance of that to me is particularly when we look at what china is doing today worldwide globally and

particularly we are seeing the economic expansion of china not only indicator of the in the caribbean that most especially in africa to 54 nations of africa you will be hard-pressed to find any nation that that is not having an investment by the chinese and here we are this room is comprised of a group of people who most often fall to the top of the list when you talk about entrepreneurs, people did on their own businesses. people that start their own business. get what many are not doing is looking to have relationships, the natural relationships with china, and we showed and necessarily with africa but there is a whole world out there and part of my message is to say to you back having grown up in these united states in a place

that i love and i'm not saying that i want to live anyplace else but here. what i'm saying is we have to id leave work on the messaging that comes to us and our children. right now i live in los angeles and people are most often talking about teaching spanish. it's very important. you want to learn or have your children learn how to speak mandarin because there are business relationships and cultural relationships and all kind of opportunities that exist out there. and when we talk about power, which we have been talking about, the power basis i think i live in california and los angeles where the population in terms of my metropolitan area is about 4%. not a lot in the area. so, we have to form coalitions

in order to bring about the kind of changes that we want and to have the power from which to operate. having said that i will tell you we are trying to sell it so that it will air on a major widely distributed network and air on the africa channel which i think you will see here in fort lauderdale and i think miami also. and it's a book that will go to much more detail about what life was like growing up i was a member of the nation of islam at a point in my life. [laughter] i could see what my grandfather was dealing with as he was going through communism and the in the

revolution and it ends up being a fascinating look. if he wondered if she researched the africans and her family, i did. as you might already know the majority are of a sean t. dissent. we are actually in the area of the world but is presently ghana. they just look like us. they are overwhelmingly in jamaica and the maroons you might know where the warrior class that came down and killed slave owners and everyone. i say right on. sorry about was my political pun. so i said they market star so for a lot of people they will

fight you in a minute, philosophically fight. but the unfortunate thing is i cannot go back and look back at the generations and find all that's gone on the african side of my family. and i wish i could but i just want to say to you that in closing today i was fortunate to find a lot of information online to ten years ago i couldn't have been able to find. so if you are looking for records or how to find people with a relative certificate to the ancestry.com but the other one that is free has a wealth of information is written by the mormon church because they would

search like nobody's business and so you can find all kinds of information. i found the records for my grandfather's transportation back and forth between hong kong and jamaica and even hong kong and canada. so if you are searching not so much a vanity search but it really does help anger us in the world, it helps us understand where we are and where we come from and also it helps us chart where we are going. when i tell you that the jamaicans and the canadians and australians in the u.s. and we are all in business together on those polls we are doing business deals making sure that those of us who have big ideas are getting an opportunity to exercise those.

so thank you very much. [applause] >> that was really awesome we have very colorful congresspeople sitting up here. you made the debate could see donna edwards all over television on a the talking head shows as well as belmar in all kind of other shows. i wanted to follow up if you would they think it is interesting what carla madison was talking about and the standpoint there would probably never be reparations in the country. we could talk about it but it's

going nowhere most likely. but from the standpoint of what the government can possibly do, i'm wondering if there might be an opportunity for the reparations in the form of working in the public-private partnership to help people take dna samples and maybe allow there to be some tracking and grouping of what that might reveal in order to find family members because we know it's true that we were sold into slavery and families split apart. so i realize it is a heavy question and i talk with either of you prior to today but if you have any ideas about that and if you are willing to sponsor such a bill.

>> thank you. i think it is an excellent idea. we have participated in following the legislation seeking reparations for 21 years that you've given me the privilege of being in congress and signed onto that legislation every year. it is a pleasure to be here with you this morning. i am overwhelmed with the presenters that have preceded and i will be very brief because i want her to take the responsibility talking about

washington and what we are likely to see in the lame-duck session and we could probably answer what we have already done what we may do, however, we have to get there first and that is november 4 come and we have exacted a responsibility to ourselves. [applause] i brought along and have distributed to you remarks that were made by the first lady michelle obama july 30, 2014 and she was speaking to the summit of the washington fellowship for young african leaders. i will not lift this in the brief remarks but i hope you will pick up a copy of it.

i thought it was an example of how to talk to others about empowerment and that is what this conference is about. how we got to the topics when the women succeed, donna edwards who represents maryland's fourth congressional district contemplates the counties something she doesn't know but i know that is a lot of them come out. they've got to keep up with you. but he also has exacting response abilities for the democratic party's.

donna is indeed the representative for recruiting candidates in the nation for the democratic party and that is determined as a sensibility. she travels an awful lot and does a great amount of work. to keep with the way of going about bringing out the humor in a i like highlight to tell a joke just for the sake of first this time it doesn't relate to anything but my favorite joke lately is that a congress person died and went to heaven and when they got to have an st. peter told the ministers he said we have this nice efficiency for you. we have this sweet here with all

kinds of resource and they say wait a minute. why am i getting an efficiency when the congress is getting the sweet. and he told them he said while coming to the ministers are up here but this is the first congressman that we have ever seen. [applause] that's work that we do is not easy in these times. when we go back we will be dealing with the continuing resolution of the funding of the government that keeps us stable. it's now part of our responsibility to deal with the presidents request for added

funding under a portion of the law in congress and appropriations which allow training people and i should not get into the substance of that particular matter. the lame-duck session of congress that i have participated in have been where a lot of action takes place and i believe this to my colleague. she has five minutes to tell you where we go from here but i am just elated that she came here and it was her idea along with another colleague that we use the term when women succeed america succeeds and when president obama put it into his state of the union address and when he said when women succeed america succeeds she said yes.

[applause] >> thank you very much and good morning. i am excited to be here and really delighted. it's true when the women succeed america succeeds but it's not a slogan. it's a fact. it's great to be here with you and all the committee. my friend and colleague gave me the challenge of presenting what it is we might do in a lame-duck session and as i thought about that last night i thought i read an article in the politico newspaper that says this would be the lamest lame-duck session and i think how appropriate for what has been one of the lamest that we have seen in the

generations. so the lame-duck do-nothing congress is probably quite appropriate. so i thought i would start by telling you the things that we should do during the lame-duck congress. what we should do that could turn the congress would be to pass an increase in the federal minimum wage because most minimum wage workers are women, the federal minimum wage is right now at a level that doesn't allow people to live and work and 40 hours a week at minimum wage and not reach the poverty line so we cannot do that in a lame-duck session. that would include workers and for minimum-wage workers, two thirds of them are women and the majority of the women have asked -- a numbered of them are black and brown women of color and so

the lame-duck congress could pass the minimum wage. in the lame-duck congress we could pass provisions of immigration reform. we can do it in a way that respects families that value our economy that bring people out of the shadows and as taxpayers and contributors to trillions of dollars in the economy but we are not going to do that either. that's what the lame-duck congress could do. the lame-duck congress has a transportation infrastructure bill that would provide the roads and bridges and rails and all of our infrastructure to the 21st century. allow us to compete in the 21st century and contribute hundreds of thousands of jobs to the economy. that's what a lame-duck congress could do but that's not what we are going to do. a lame-duck congress could almost make certain when i get

to where i'm going and i do know where i'm going and the afterlife, i am going to become counting heads because i'm not really sure about these people in congress but the lame-duck congress could remove the money portion of politics. you have seen it in florida and we've seen it around the country too much money spent in politics. money being spent at his dark and is not transparent and it is depressing. congress could do something about that but that's not what we are going to do either so it will get us to mid december and then mid-december and then we don't know what the politics are in line whether it is democrats which i believe we will continue will continue to control and i hope we get the house so that we could do something in the real congress or the american people. [applause]

the other thing we need to do depending on what we would do that the president has outlined on our foreign policy agenda with respect to what is happening now in iraq and a serious way for the increased threat from isis there are many of us that want a seeing goal solitary vote on that and we will see in this congress we will probably do something in this next week when we come back in the session and it may be that we will do something else and then again in the lame-duck congress. i wanted to be able to see more about what it is that we should be doing in the congress when we come back to giving that we haven't really done anything for the american people over the last two years in the republican-controlled congress we are not going to be doing

that much in december either. it should be taking another vote to repeal the affordable care act. i think been there done that. we all know how you feel about the affordable care act that we don't have to do that anymore. hopefully so we will not be doing that in the lame-duck congress and we look forward to the next congress that will hopefully be a do something congress working with the president of the united states to do what's right by the american people. thank you very much. [applause] >> i failed to introduce properly my congressman hastings

[applause] but most of the people in this room knows who he is. to the c-span audience. [applause] we are really pleased with all of our speakers and we want to open the floor for a few questions and i'm sure my timekeepers will keep us on track. if there are questions for any of the speakers today if you could proceed to the microphone there is one here or here and if not, we will move our program. the next speaker maggie anderson she and her family made history and dominated headlines as national media coverage of their

year-long stand in honor of professionals, entrepreneurs, the anderson family lived exclusively off the businesses and they bought black owned products and made products for an entire year. this first ever study in self-help economics was called called to be in power and experience. he earned a political science degree from emory university and a ba and a jd from the university of chicago where president obama was the law professor and mentor and before the experiment she was an aide to congressman john lewis a political speechwriter, corporate and legal strategy executives at the mcdonald's corporation and a strategy comes as. please welcome my new sister and i think that you will just be

floored by the information she has to share with you today, maggie anderson. [applause] >> i am so honored to be one of your speakers today and celebrate four years in the end torment conference. before i begin i would like to put my heart on the platter for our friends for inviting me to be here today. and thank you for making this journey into this struggle to the community a little easier. i want to thank you for allowing me to share my empowerment story committee experiment. share some highlights. we spent our otherwise investing in $94,000 that year that we would not have otherwise and over 90% of the spending was

directly back into the black community. we went without and paid more because there were so few options. we are disappointed by the market industries where we suffer from the complete lack of representation by your own people with but a lack of solidarity. our hearts ache but people are people and have to go through you can't get a decent piece of fish, banana, whole grains, fresh milk or settle for inferior goods and services that use our money to send kids to college. it's painful hearing the story of the entrepreneurs that work hard and can't get their own people to lift them up and it wasn't just that. it was as dramatic as we said our political leaders and wealthy business owners to take this message to the next level and they've responded with nothing but a pat on the back

because they thought that it was a waste of time. the self-help economics is too controversial in this community. even though every other ethnic and racial racial group groups and nationality openly practiced self-help economics. [applause] they begged their own people to keep supporting one another and and all they do is complain about the poor goods and services and there is but one that they supported years ago but they never had a bad experience at a hispanic owned or middle eastern or asian owned business. they were dealing with the threats and the hate mail that's still up today. they take the cbs news and pbs news hour and a c-span to the areas in chicago in that economic deprivation and the drug addicts on the street,

everything watching them shake their heads as we go from door to door and business-to-business. we are doing a story on black businesses. may we meet your owner sometimes before encountering a black proprietor. why is it that black people have to buy food and liquor stores? i don't know. i don't know wolf blitzer. what a shame. my god look at all these people. that's so racist that you have to deal with that. that is my arianna huffington died of -- by the way. i don't know. more of a fighting mortified. you'll read about them in the buck. they are all gone.

they represent and love my little girl and they still ask about them. i lost a lot this year. we knew it all and we were doing enough and we were a naïve couple. my husband was a finance guy and my parents came here from cuba with nothing. i grew up not far from here and then i went on to emory university if john lewis and then i went onto the university of chicago and my law degree where i learned constitutional law among other things from the united states president. we fell in love and in graduate school , john and i., not the president. [laughter] we bought our home in chicago, had two beautiful girls and we

are living our perfect american dream story. why would we have to do something this extreme to prove our willingness to stand up for them. it's not like we weren't doing anything. we were active in the church and john was a mentor. we were teaching our girls to love themselves, their country. wasn't bad enough? it is commendable but it's not a philanthropist overlook the circumstances of economic injustice to make the philanthropy necessary. the community circulates among the communities retailers and specialists for about 28 days. and the jewish community period and the community for the lack of a better term term and a

permanently white suburbs, 17 days. they keep their dollars for weeks into the communities today keep the dollar per six hours. these are facts. these disparities and implications and conversation about the crisis in the black community. the unemployment and economic problems in our country and the discussion for the business diversity and corporate america. but there is a better version of that story. it needs to be taught and taught and told again. this story comes from a long line of intelligent women like you, like marie stuart in 1832 she stood in front of an audience of black and white, men and women in boston and exclaimed the daughter of africa

awaits. it is no use to sit on our hands hanging our heads. let us make an effort and raise a vote for ourselves. do you ask what we can do? you might build a store of your own and do others with groceries. dude you ask where is the money we've spent more than enough on the nonsense to do what building we should want. she said this in 1832. marie stuart was quite possibly the first african male or female to call publicly on them to support each other in business. the two devastating events would light the fire of righteousness. first the death of her husband only three years after they got married and she said the business was stolen by the associates that robbed of their estate. instead of the aftermath of the tragedies, they got angry and inspired writing opinion pieces

and speaking publicly and calling on them to lift themselves up from the spiritual education and economic event. nearly a decade before frederick douglass started against racial justice. today is about marie a woman of color and power. i think about how hopeless our brothers and sisters and ancestors must have felt when they walked to church hopeless, feeling desperate with michael's thunder that hot alabama sun and the available montgomery basses passed right by. i think about those that inspire that smart and strong activism. i wasn't around but i do know the time that our community came together. our country came together because a black woman decided to take a stand. and i'm not her.

i will not insult her legacy by comparing my sacrifice to her but if i don't learn from her sacrifice and we do insult her when we give up on her fight. in that instance that society will become revolutionary. the times demanded it of her. she did it for me so i do this for her. today is about all of us. remember today those people that died in the fields and factories and farms, and in so doing building up other families riches and businesses but still that exist today. business is our communities need and are entitled to. remember those entrepreneurs that were raped and shot out and jailed for daring to do with businesses try to do. when i asked our young people to do, what some of you do and that is to set up the shop offer the

community a good or service and expects to be valued and supported. imagine they had their homes and economic -- thriving economics to the ground and looted because business owners and consumers alike had to be reminded violently and unambiguously that they didn't have the right of entrepreneurship to have a self-sustaining community. today let's honor those towns. let's go home and tell our children about the town of you think about them later tonight and later this week and you consider whether it is worth it to pay a little more or to look a little harder to support the businesses that we do still have. tell your children, your friends, that the day before he urged us to support black businesses. our local doctor king wasn't fighting for the economic empowerment, not just basic

human rights committee was fighting for our businesses, not just the right to support everyone else. black owned businesses. it's okay to say black and business in the same sentence. [applause] .. one in the whole country,