about one hour 15 minutes. good afternoon. to meet our democracy is a

system of values and institutions that allow each and every person, no matter who they are or whether from to help shape the future of our country. the sobering truth that we face a president that wants to pit us against each other, who thrives on it, who undermined our norm, values and institutions every day. he praises with dictators. the president of the media the enemy of the people. they also have a president would tax integrity of our judiciary whether it's questioning the ability of a mexican american to serve as a federal judge were working on a right-win wing takeover of the court as we can see this evening.

this is a powerful force for defending the rights of the minority against the majority could supporting basic human rights including stopping the inhumane policy of family separation when this power is placed in the wrong hands our justice system and often take our country backwards, whether it's upholding the muslim ban, attacking the basic civil rights to vote, or weakening our protections for immigrants. each and every generation has a fundamental duty to renew the strength of our democracy and in fact, the battles we have today are monks the starkest. the actual weapon we have to save our democracy is democracy in action. it is all about showing up at about box, showing up in our communities and communicating

that this will not stand. we are here to protect it. thank you very much. >> please welcome our next analyst president and ceo, ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm in a room with powerful latinos and i do not hear energ energy. i don't hear energy. i'm in a talk about progress. i know it just in time we feel like we are not making progress. progress is because of the progress we have made that folks are coming after us. progress is lonelier basically able to put a stake.

progress is when the president declared separation of families and opened up the first internment camp of ten cities in the middle of texas in the desert, expecting no one to pay attention. we heard about it on wednesday, on sunday we set we were going to do a march and in less than seven days we had latino leadership leading an effort to turn down texas. we had many leadership thing not on our watch. that is progress. progress is identifying leadership, young talent and

training young people to run for office in the last two years for have run for office and three have one, recently alexandria. progress is having a slate of potential presidential candidates. progress is every single person in this room because one thing this administration does not know is that we are american latinos before we are political parties and progress to be in this room means that you have had to fight tooth and nail to be here. nothing has ever been given to the latino community. you are a testament of that and that is progress. we are built for this moment, we are strong because progress

is recognizing our potential at the voting booth. 80% of latinos who register vote. the mean age of the white american voter is 54. the mean age of the latino voter is 18 years old. [applause] that is progress when we come together as a community, when were running young candidates and setting our sights high to the office of the president and making sure that where executive and mobilizing each other, uplifting each other, we are unstoppable. while we don't realize right now, because we keep hearing these terrible things about the latino community, it's because they see our potential. when they try to prevent us from the voting booth it's because they see our progress. we know we have an individual who wants to make sure they

want to run for office, we have to make sure that we are encouraging them because that is progress but i want you all to here with me. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] this is our moment, our vote and i will see you in november but first we are going to organize. [applause] : : :

fighting for equality. they are about securing equality, extending equality and more important than ever before protecting our equality. some may ask why does it care about the recipients what about the muslim man or a voting rightwere votingrights or womeno choose the simple choices that community is as diverse as the fabric of this nation. we are muslim, we are jewish, we are women, we are black, white,

asian and native american, immigrants and people with disabilities. [applause] and when donald trump attacks one of us he's going to hear from every single one of us. [applause] because we are all stronger when we stand together i'm going to share a quick story with you last month i was in arizona to discuss the intersection of these issues one of the leaders i got to meet that day is an organizer some of you may know where she lived much of her life as an undocumented immigrants but in 2016 she got to vote for the first time and not only did she get to vote for the first woman presidential nominee she

also got to cast a vote for herself. my friends, there is nothing more uniquely american band that story and that's why i've never been more optimistic about our future. one of the silver linings of this moment that we are all living through today is that never before have we as a people been more eager to participate and fight back against the social justice movements we have stood shoulder to shoulder for the dignity of all people and that is a fight we must pursue it for the greater urgency now than ever before. thank you all for having me here. [applause] welcomed the counsel of the

naacp legal defense. [applause] today marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 14th amendment to the constitution, so it is a good day to talk about justice. give the 14th amendment a round of applause. [applause] this is a day to talk about justice. the 14th amendment articulated three critical rights that forever changed the country. first, birthright citizenship meaning anyone born on u.s. soil is a u.s. citizen. second, equal protection of the wall and third, they guarantee of due process to ensure that states could not deprive individuals of life, liberty or

property. it's important to remember at this moment that the guarantees of equal protection as due process extend by the words of the 14th amendment to every person in the united states regardless of whether they are citizens or not what does this have to do with justice. most of us think justice should be a byproduct of the quality. we expected to flow freely from a society that upholds the dignity of every citizen that purges itself of any quality and guarantees the rights of everyone to be heard. the injustice that we see every day in our country today at the border and encounter with police officers and voting in our

education system is. the fears and america created after the civil rights and we are not there yet. in fact, what progress we have made is being threatened like never before. so today i'm asking all of us to reconnect to the promise of the 14th amendment is guarantees and protections were bought and paid for with the lives of over 600,000 americans perished in the civil war and countless individuals known and unknown who put their lives on the line during the civil rights movement because justice in fact is not inevitable. if you want justice, you have to fight for it. fight for justice wherever you stand. in the court room, in the

statehouse, in your community come in the streets, fight for the supreme court, fight for a congress that does its job, fight for the educational institution, fight for our democracy. then when we think that we have achieved justice, we have to fight more. the forces that would turn us back, they are fighting and they never give up. but we have the words of the 14th amendment on our side. so we fight on likely need to win. [applause] joining us from the leadership conference, please give a warm welcome to the president and ceo. [applause] it is great to be here this afternoon and to see this room so full of people.

freedom is a value that undergirds the history and founding of the country. but we all know that freedom was built on the genocide of native americans found that around at tharound theexclusion and enslaf africans and african-americans and the struggle for freedom in this country has been a struggle from a more perfect union. it's a struggle that has defined our own history as a country. and from the founding of this nation, the struggle for freedom about who defines freedom and who gets to be free and who doesn't. it's been freedom like the founding fathers were trying to push all the while living a hypocrisy that resulted in the confinement and oppression of

certain people but also from the marginalized communities. and that of dignity and humanity we know in the course of the history the greates greatest ths have always involved a deep dehumanization of certain people in certain communities. we are fighting for our freedom to be with our children, to have families stay whole. yet what this administration has put in such detail it is a freedom to live free from the mass incarceration. it's the freedom to love who we wish to love and marry who we wish to marry a. a freedom to worship where we want to worship, a freedom that is fundamentally about being able to be who we are with a

full rights afforded to us by equal protection clause that is talked about. but there is nothing inevitable about this freedom and we are seeing today such a task on fundamental value othefundamentn every sense of the word. these attacks on freedom can ultimately undermine who we are as a country on our own watch. things are happening. the attacks on the free press, the attacks on the judiciary and the communities and families. these things can happen on our watch. there is nothing inevitable about freedom. the only thing that ever defines us as a country and our freedom has been that men and women and young people like all of us in this room have insisted upon it and on the rights inherent and that is what we are here fighting for today. that is what i do with these

leaders on the stage every single day is to never take that for granted, to be out in the streets filing papers in court, today we will see an announcement of a new supreme court justice nominee to the supreme court. let me just tell you the supreme court played an important role defining who gets to be free and who isn't and we need every single one of you involved in this fight. we have so much at stake with a fight in the supreme court and so let's not ever take this for granted. i want you to repeat after me nobody is free until everybody is free. one, two, three nobody is free until everybody is free. thank you. [applause] moderating this important conversation, ladies and gentlemen please give a warm welcome to the president and c ceo. [applause] [cheering]

52 years ago when chavez was first bringing attention to the plight of farmworkers, he received a telegram from doctor martin luther king jr.. that telegram in parts sent to veto said our separate struggles are really one. a struggle for freedom, for dignity, humanity. we stand on the shoulders of giants who understood our common bond.

we have seen those struggles in the silos at times and if there is a bright light in all of this challenge that we are seeing today is that we have created an opportunity for us to come together and leverage our strengths in so many ways. i think about our new name as we were approaching our 50th anniversary we understood that we had to think differently about how we could take on the challenges we are seeing today but also to create opportuniti opportunities.

for us it is a cry and a po for the community to come together but more importantly, it's also an invitation for others to join us. we understand that in this time more than ever, we need partners and allies if we have to be a partner and ally because no one person, no one organization or community can accomplish alone these challenges that we see. but we also have to recognize that as we come together, we have to use the strengths to push back on the policies that

we know are holding us back to also understand we can use the strengths to create the opportunities that we know will lift all of us up. so for us we come together in this moment recognizing that there's never been a more important time to use collectively our voice and vote and create the vision of america that we know it can be and to uphold the ideals and vision that we know includes everyone and having that shot for every one to have their own american dream. welcome to today's panel. [applause]

we worked together as leaders of all of these distinguished entities and organizations, but we don't often get the chance to sit down and talk about what's happening. we worked together closely and coalitions as i was talking, but i think this is a very important time for us to talk a little bit about what the state of our civil rights movement is right now. let's share with folks what we think are some of the biggest challenges and opportunities that we know we can take on together. we have a lot happening. there's a supreme court nominee that is about to be announced. you talked about that a little bit. one of the things i keep hearing is that it is important obviously for us as a civil rights movement to stay together

and keep pushing, but what is it that we need to do differently or in a new way that you think can be the path forward for all of us? do you want to take that first? >> i do. it's exciting to be sitting here with my colleagues and all of you. i want to identify tooting. first, i think that notwithstanding our very optimistic picture of what will happen in this country demographically as referred to in terms of the median age of the latino voter and we talked about being a majority minority country and support and i think that we have to rely less on the idea that demography is destiny because it is not. there is such a thing as minority rule. it's very ugly.

many of us know it from south africa. it's brutal. we shouldn't assume just because there's numbers there's power. if you want power you have to decide you're going t you are ge power and to exercise power requires that you lean into every moment that you can acquire power and that means you are not just voting in the midterm election this year because trump is a nightmare. you are voting in th a school bd election got a town council, the water convention, the sheriff elections, city council.

he voted for th vote for the goe mayor videos and the other city council you vote for a. of this is about all power at this moment. we are not accustomed to that. let me ask about this. you are right about that. folefully using our voice.

other avenues we should be pursuing a. we have to do other things. what are some of the other things. what pcr does aligned against the bathat and you have a visiof the country and we are basically fighting for the soul of the country. everyone voting and participating in looking at a supreme court site is one in

which we have alliances across our organization and that we each have to step up and bring everyone to these issues. the only thing that has associated. it is direct democracy engaging. call on your member of congress. discussing politics as normal and engaging not just on election day but before in the supreme court right now we need senators to hear from their constituents all across the country to say we are not just going on with politics as usual. >> we talked about in this conference certainly our community having been on her assault. we've seen that since day number one.

rapists, drug dealers, animals, we have seen references in very extreme ways the pardoning a and hand for temporary protected status and of course now the families being separated on the border. one of the reaffirming things that i think is an extraordinary is that everybody has owned these issues. it's no longer just in our community speaking out on behalf of ourselves. for the national civil rights leaders everybody showed up and responded and said it's about human rights and not just civil rights cow every community represented here has been under assault and what does this mean for us as we go forward.

there's few moments in history where the most fundamental things really get a pronounced in sucpronounced insuch a way tt now. but fundamentally a lot of us are doing this work not out of the protection of one community or another. we are seeing a fight for our country. these are about american values when the administration announced some first muslim bands you didn't see people rushing to the airport. use all people of all but never believed they were activists before rushed to the airports, rushed to the streets out of the belief that this is not who we are as a country this is not who we want to be or who we deserve

to be. that's why you are seeing on a regular basis the assault into confrontation on voting rights in all of the anti-immigrant underpinnings of almost every policy that is being put out there right now. and a lot of ways i have the luxury of being at the leadership conference with a coalition of over 210 nationally in civil rights organizations and in some ways this is exactly the moment that we were called for because the level of solidarity and the defense of the fundamentally american values that we are kind of coming together on right now isn't about one community, it's who we are as a country. that's why the family separation issue crystallizes the ways in which we have to stand up when one part of the community is dehumanized in this way. we can't stand for it because an attack on one of us is an attack

on all of us and that is why we are rising to the challenge. [applause] one of the challenges i feel i could have come and maybe this is something you want to talk about, i worry that there's so much information as someone said earlier technology has revolutionized how we receive information and other people are making references to take news and how they get the facts out there. how do we convey to people in our own community or others what is true, how do we deal with the challenge right now do either one of you want to take that? >> the challenge that we all face is breaking through in this insane moment where you have

this so-called president with his tiny little from his sending out messages every 102nd. what he wants you to do and what he wants all of us to do is get distracted, to look over their so you don't see what's happening right here. we see it all the time there is still an epidemic of the country that relates to hiv and aids and violence and murder of women of color the media do not focus on that enough and so many other issues. what we've got to do is keep telling stories because that is how we change the hearts and minds and ultimately how we are going to win this battle. but we can't get distracted. don't get distracted by robert mueller were stormy daniels.

we have to pull the emergency brake. a special counsel for the white house i didn't go to law school. it allows us for the mobilization and organizing. so, while the president is trying to distract us, we need a clear vision. 93 million americans sat about in the last election. 93 million. 12 million young voters by the

next presidential, two thirds of them are younger people of color. our job is not to leave any voter on the table. our job is clear if they distracted we have to build and i will share in california we have pete wilson who was a precursor and what we did is threefold. we invested in infrastructure we have a campaign to clearly define the person that tried to target the community and register if you were to ask me what we need to do differently come as a latino community we need to start investing in organization because for too long we are sitting on the sideline expecting someone else to invest and until we invest in our leadership and the institutions that we need to come of i, thatis the reason th. 60% or 33 years or younger. we have to make sure that we are making the contributions because right now we expect someone else to do the work.

i will let you in on a secret. right now the way the establishment is structured, people register enough latinos to get their candidates over the top, just enough. there's a strategy basically saying i'm going to register the 50% i know will come right away and the 1% will get my candidate over the top by that structure latinos will never have the political power that is represented that they need. african-americans will never have the political power, they will never have political power so we need to run the candidates, register the staff and we need to pull out our checkbooks. [applause]

i agree 100% and i'm proud of the work that we have been leading in the voter registration in particular in the last decade we've registered 600,000 new voters and now in november we are going to register 100,000 new so we are very invested in this and you are right we need other people to be investing in the way that we can engage more and more. >> it was a 2 billion-dollar election. 56 million latinos that was said tweresaid to be three times morn was invested. when it comes to voting i want to ask you we are out there hustling trying to make sure we are connecting with everybody but yet we are seeing more and more barriers, suppression

efforts. you have been a great champion in this space. what can you talk to us about what can more people due to feel like they are also helping in making sure that we are breaking down the barriers for people to have access to voting and for their rights to be part of the electoral process? >> i'm not saying that because i'm an activist. i'm repeating what the federal court found in texas, wisconsin, north carolina the legislatures memet in an active voter suppression walls, voter id laws for the purpose of keeping african-americans and other instances from voting. we challenged the law and the trial court found him in over 90 page decision that the purpose of the voter id law that sex is

created, this was the voter id law that is not allowing our clients who are university students to use their university id to vote, not using a tribal id to vote anymore or a federal employee id to vote anymore but you could use a concealed gun carry permits. this flaw was created for the purpose of suppressing the vote and i emphasize this because we can't pretend that it's something that i is is defined t there and isn't real. it is racist and it's targeted at our community into this real so we will keep litigating and pushing back against those rules and those walls and you have to be conscious of the fact that they exist. this is why it's important for us to talk beyond just the actual physical act of voting because our power is not only in our boat, but it' it's in our engagement and this is where we fall off. even when we have some of the highest voting participation levels as african-americans did in the 2008 presidential election when barack obama was

elected they were excited and we voted. we then have to stay engaged and this doesn't mean you come and go two years later. it means you are showing up in meetings, you are contacting your congress person. right now the president wants you to say this is a reality tv show and you ar are supposed to beat until 9:00 at night, si, fs of a cocktail, get popcorn and watch this unfold. under the constitution someone can only be confirmed in the supreme court not onl but only e president picked them up if they are confirmed by the united states senate and the senators represent you. [applause] so your job as a member is to contact your senator and tell them what you want. it could be a senate judiciary committee anjudiciarycommittee r will have a vote. what do you want them to do,

tell them i don't want you to rollback voting rights. tell your senator we stand for treating immigrants humanely. tell your senator we stand for upholding these rights. tell them what you want. tell them the questions you want them to ask the senate nominees. you have power. they want to keep their power. every single person in this room could run for school board. there's nothing stopping them. it's not a full-time job. do you run for office or tell your children to run for office, do you run for the county commissiocounty commissionor the the ability to stay engaged in your community. but we tell you if you show up in mass with your family and other people that you know at a council meeting, they will be scared to death. [laughter] they want to know what's going on, are they in trouble, just your presence puts troubled if we stay home, we watch tv and we

let the government have been somewhere else and that has to be over. power is not just about voting. [applause] when we all decide on a saturday that we are going to go to the movies or something, there are three carload second of going. if we can just approach this and take the whole family, right next [laughter] >> i have a question for you because i want to understand is a little bit of a challenge right now because in many ways, we've never seen the country more polarized. it seemed like there's action is in on the one hand, we want to be able to talk honestly about how passionate we feel when we see many in our community is being assaulted with these policies and the harm and the suffering that it's causing them. and it's hard to remove some of the anger from that.

we want to make sure we are getting our community engaged and excited and telling those stories that at the same time, it feels like there is a disconnect with folks who may not see things exactly the same way that we see them and they need to be convinced that we are really talking about issues that should be issues we hold in common in terms of how we treat families. how do you make sure you are talking to your own community getting folks engaged without seeming to be pushing the way others who need a better understanding. is it our rhetoric or is it about our tactics or is it something that you think needs attention or does it need attention? >> this is one of the hardest things we are facing us right now we've seen this in previous

periods in america but this is the starkest that it's been in many decades in my mind which is we have a person leaving the country that is trying to put groups against each other is trying to sell fear as different people, immigrants, islam's, any group out of favor and i think the challenge that we have is it is hard to break through when different groups are listening to different sets of facts. it's hard to break through when the president can say something that is a demonstrable lie and therinthat there is a group of e who will just believe it. my view of this is we have to actually hold to the truth more strongly and to be a little bit more optimistic if you look at

the last year and a half, donald trumps a variety of things that were not true. he said the affordable care act is terrible and to replace it with a bill that 70% of people did not believe him. he's tried to defend this family separation policy and two thirds of americans said he was wrong. i do not think that we have to convince every group although we should try, that we are in a battle. again, for the most basic questions about our democracy which is who is american, what does america stand for and in that fight we have to be tireless as we are all tested and the also have to be fearless about the truth. and honest about this impact in people's lives. we have to communicate to people

who don't always agree with that. i personally believe you have to call your annoying relatives in the other states who don't agree with you and convince them or at least try to engage them because we know one thing which is a faster when they are not challenged and that is what the right has been doing for decades, they've been engaged in an entire communication strategy around a narrative that sees all of us as a threat. >> people look to the community and have sent we have seen so much progress and of course we know that those winds are not permanent, but the community has

been an example that people have lived for how you made progress in organizing the latest. do you want to talk a little bit about how you have seen that sort of work in the story and what is at stake now? >> the power of telling the stories. all of the research shows regardless of what the art appear talking about taking away a affordable healtaffordable heg away a woman's right to safe and legal abortion or mary jacoby, nondiscrimination protections if you know someone suffering from the lack of one of those rights or if you know some one that lives next door to you or sits next to you on sunday morning at personalizes it and all of a sudden it breaks down the clutter that surrounds these issues on a regular basis and then the second thing i would

say is we can never forget the vast majority of the american public that means democrats and a whole lot of republicans and independents agree on every issue we are up here talking about, the dream act, nondiscrimination, whatever the issue is. folks in congress and that leadership in the house and senate are so out of touch with the american people they are not with us on many of these issues but the american people are and that's what we have to remember we have to continue to engage the electorate on all of these issues because more times than not when they hear our stories it changes hearts and minds and then we just got t we've just go the voting booth for the local, state and national level. [applause]

one issue i want to raise, there's so many but maybe you all can talk about it is senseless. a lot of times people understand it requires us to fill out forms but they don't understand that at the end of the day how this process is completed and fulfilled will affect the ways communities have access to resources and power. one decision that we have seen made most recently by the trump administration has been to add a question looking for ways to continue to divide and separate and marginalized folks in this process and asking individuals whether they are a citizen or not some might say what's the big deal.

but we know in our community when you have mixed status household families where many folks are u.s. citizens or perhaps one is not when it's nos that there is a fear created for anyone to participate for fear of what that might mean that yet the constitution says every person should be counted. do you want to talk about the impact? >> we were official census partners in 2010 and we identified that they can help build the census and we used that to make sure in three communities they were able to do so, but they basically identifies who gets public money. we are talking billions of dollars in every investment from school to healthcare clinics to the roads. it also identifies where the corporations want to make investments. where do they want to have their next amazon headquarters. it also informs whether and how

the congressional lines are going tweregoing to be drawn. when they go after industria citizenship question. when we talk about the census and the voting files and how the president perceives the community is in the back of latinos because they are the second largest group in frequent participants they don't believe that necessarily impacts us and we have to make sure that we are organizing and talking to each other. one thing i always like to say is that we love to talk on our

phones. we have to talk on our phones to make sure we are sharing information just like other folks like to spread disinformation on facebook. we have to do peer-to-peer work to make sure everybody understands that the notions are. the possibility is high that it is all by design. when the supreme court went after shelby county and removed the act that allowed the disadvantaged folks from participating, shelby county was the fifth-largest in 2010. over 100%. every jurisdiction that followed had at least a 20 to 25% growth. other folks have been impacted, but disproportionately they try to hold it back. >> did he want to talk about the census? >> sometimes they say that's the least sexy civil rights issue and it's one of the most foundational to our democracy.

apart from the doling out of the $800 billion by the federal government for communities that is based on the account it is also the basis for the political apportionment and representation and house of representatives. in the house of representatives. and it is the only program mandated by the constitution written into the constitution that the government has to count every single human being within the borders every ten years. and so, when jeff sessions asked the department of commerce to add a citizenship question back in november and three months later the secretary decides without testing the new science behind it to add that question, we learned through subsequent litigation that behind the question lobbying forces for steve bannon and the campus secretary of state responsible and a whole slew of anti-latino

measures around the country. we know exactly what this is about and what our agenda is. and at th the risk to the censuw of it being because of the additional question and the level of fear that even you for quite honestly before the question was added, the leadership conference has been through the cycles understood the political climate for the immigrants to respond to the census was already going to be so charged now with the addition of this question was taking it to the risk of sabotaging a census. so there's been a number of lawsuits filed, but there isn't a path to ending it in congress. congress can undo it but it's going to depend on what happens in november for there to be a path to undo it. there will be an accounting for the leadership conference in all of the groups that are a part, we have to have an all hands on deck effort. it's going to be so important that all of you in your

communities where you are trusted leaders and messengers we are going to need to enlist you to organize and get the communities counted. we are going to need to fight back to undo this and make sure our communities are able to see the resources and have the political power and representation. it is so foundational and this is going to be an effort that will involve all of us. i want to also say the census is -- this is kind of tying this all together that when our community votes, we win. you hear all these issues tied together about the census into the voting. we've got to be engaged every moment is an organizing opportunity. you are seeinyou're seeing it il communities every moment is an

organizing opportunity in all of you are organizing in your own communities and saying there are so many things to organize around sometimes we have to bring our people in based on the issues they cared about. they may feel alienated from government but we know without investment in our democratic institutions we are seeing some of the most basic aspects in the democratic institutions get eroded and that's why we've got to be organized to fight back because when we organize me wh e win. we can fight these big fights in washington. >> they've opened comments asking for the leaders to provide information on the census they can provide feedback. you can go ahead and provide public comment saying we do not want a census to use that power.

can i use one thing here, when i was a little girl, the rule in my house was if a stranger is at the door and rang the doorbell, we didn't answer the door. that was the thing. for the census was already very challenging for us and certainly somebody with a clipboard taking information, these were not people that we invited into our living room for coffee so that was just culturally not what we did. but i was a census taker when i was 18. i won't tell you that decade, but ten years ago -- [laughter] i was a census taker and what it taught me is it about my own neighborhood on blocks that i've never seen before or heard of and it showed me the confidence people need to have two actually opened the door and answer those questions. it is a nice little job for younger people because the more we are part of the rank of who

is taking the census, the more confidence people will have to open the door to talk to people, the more you will have people who are bilingual or multilingual to engage with people. we shouldn't forget that part waiting for the census to have been over there. we should be asking whether they are going to put up job applications and who is going to get hired for those jobs. the current climate that we are in right now with these family separations has produced fear. if we are honest, they are well-founded. we cannot pretend that they don't exist. that's why the organizations represented here are so important especially the latino organizations that we are talking about because they have good information and they are the resources for you. we've got to stop bringing this into the communities for all of you that are leaders that those in the community feeling of who i can call. should i really be opening the door for this person, what could happen to my family. you have to be holders of that information and real leaders in your community so that we can

make sure that we get that count that is the key for opening political power. it's so important for million latinos have access to healthcare as a resulhealthcaree affordable care act and all of that is at risk it seems to me to be very much a riveting with every administrative act that we see because it was happening in the states as well. what is the best way we can protect what we have in the affordable care act and at least try to keep that in place until we are able to do more? >> there is great worry and optimism and we see the conservative states looking at expanding medicaid. utah could have a referendum in

which likely they would have medicaid expansion obviously virginia was a state in which the governor's election was hinged on the medicaid expansion and passed medicaid expansion but we should be realistic the core value of the trump administration is that this is a central part of the obama legacy and they are taking administrative acts to weaken. people should still sign up, but to be 100% if they keep the congress after everything that we have gone through they will be gone. the aca is on the ballot just like all the values that we hold dear. i will add one little additional thing to what has been said here. whether it is voting for the

census, essentially conservatives do not like the future of the country and they are trying to remake the rule to limit the power and voices of the people that they fear. you asked earlier held to be asked differently. people cannot be passive about voting. this is a new thing we have to do the next several months. make sure that you are disturbed or register a friend. because this all of these issues, the affordable care act, the census, they are not waiting for 2020. they hang in the balance once away from you. >> we are about to wrap up here, but i want to make sure maybe you are responding to one aspect

that some of the messages to be heard on saturday from the author, someone that headed up the equal justice initiative, he talked to us about proximity and how important it is to be proximate to the poor and marginalized. he talked about rejecting the politics of fear and anger and to change the narrative he said we also have to recognize what the truth is before we can have reconciliation. but he also said we have to be prepared to do something convenient and make us uncomfortable tha but maybe certainly addressing this issue doesn't mean that we don't just decide i'm going to go vote and that's it. it means you've got to do more than that. you are voting alone, that isn't going to be enough. you have to deliver more. you have to make sure you are

encouraging others in helping people understand what the steps are. he said he have to do something that makes us uncomfortable and finally, he said we have to stay hopeful because we cannot be drowned out in our despair in what we give up we can never give up. so, as we close out to hear final thoughts can you take any one of those aspects of the message and maybe make some final thoughts for our folks here? >> everything he said is spot on and i am a huge fan. i will take one thing in particular in that we do have to remain hopeful and there is a good reason for it. recognizing our privilege. if we are in this room today regardless of our backgrounds and our particular circumstances and situations, we are the lucky

ones. [applause] with that comes incredible responsibility. anan incredibleresponsibility. and this moment in history calls on us to do more and not just vote and register other people to vote, but then to show up and volunteer and knock on doors and register more people to vote and take them to the polls. when we all do that and we do our jobs between now and 2018 and 2020, i think we will look back on this moment in history and see the awakening of our democracy that is on us. >> i believe we are built for this moment.

we have to organize. we can't leave any votes on the table but we have to be clear in our vision. we are being challenged, but it's when we are challenged that we arrived because that is when we get to work and recognize that this country when you make a call to congress and fight in our military, when you march and vote, it is patriotism. my family left columbia. i won't tell you how long ago it on the brink of a failed state when someone tells me what grogan looks like, i've been there. this is not broken. what we need to do, and i believe that we are a part of this that we need to stop resisting and occupy. we need to occupy power. we need to occupy at the voting booth and also occupy the echelons of the executive board so that we can start actually changing the country that we know we can believe in. [applause]

i think the power of hopefulness is critical because i believe that the constant assault on all of our values and principles is a strategy to weaken us and make us tired. there are days i want to claim under mclimbunder my bed and une covers, but we have to recognize that it is a strategy and we have to remind ourselves there are moments of great hopefulne hopefulness. i'm optimistic off just because of one or two marches, but the waves of activism i have not seen. we need to take that energy and anger and resistance to what is happening in the country and mobilized politically.

we've faced forces that have been in our country for hundreds of years that are trying to take power away from people who are different from them. ..

>> a while ago and the perseverance and to keep your cool if you you are you sure face. they were able to do that. they were able to envision a country. but yet they could do that and determined to break the back of jim crow. so he had to ride in segregated trains when he challenged university of oklahoma law school the first

day he had forgotten he could not eat in the cafeteria of the federal courthouse. he said tomorrow you bring the bologna sandwiches. he couldn't even eat in the cafeteria and then to and segregation those who supported the work and they made that possible that they would not be able to stay in you could not even try on close as an african-american in the downtown stores. we are just that young is a democracy 55 years ago is not possible. [applause]

because whatever we are dealing with on a daily basis hails in comparison to what marshall had to deal with. i was in just a few months ago and i share it with all of you she said why do we call ourselves the resistance? they are resisting. [applause] let's remember we have the power. >> it allows for the action at this moment in my -- in time for all of us to reject that

we have to be hopeful as civil rights advocate because it isn't enough it has to be through action and organizing to build that hope into our future but ability justice thurgood marshall had way his whole entire life he was disruptive and people thought he was uncivil. with the schoolbooks and history we have to remember that they were deeply uncomfortable. the new to speak truth to power the entire segment that were out to get him. it wasn't about being a bowl and to hope beyond hope and

remember we have to filled with hope with america we all deserve and make it happen. >> the key things to take away so we have to use our voice and we have to elevate our voice to renounce policies that we know are unfair and un-american. if we change those policies we have to be engaged and participate.

and we have to have that vision for the kind of country we know that we can be. to have our voice and our boat one -- vote that will lead to victory. we can win and see that america. join me to think this incredible group of champion. [applause] for all the work they do every day. thank you very much. ♪

♪ tonight to get ready for the exciting evening the celebration starts and of course for all of you right here over 7:30 p.m. thank you so much. ♪

academy panel