because if you were no longer rewarded for just simply being a button, a chair or a presence or sending late night emails, and you were really focused on what was most important about work. the work got better. a reminder that afterwards airs every sunday evening at 10 p.m. eastern time. well, thanks for joining us on about books, a program and podcast produced by c-span booktv. booktv will continue to bring you publishing news and author programs and a reminder that you can get this podcast on the c-span. now app and you can also watch online anytime all book tv programs at booktv dot org.

>> you have been watching booktv television for serious readers. every sunday on on c-span2 hr from nonfiction authors discussing their books and watch your favorite authors online any time@booktv.org. you can also find us on facebook, youtube and x at booktv. >> friday nights watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail, a weekly discussion on how the presidential senate and house campaigns, reporters join to talk about the issues, messages and events driving the weeks political news and to take a look at the week ahead. watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail friday nights at seven eastern on on c-span, onlinet c-span.org or download as a podcast on c-span now our free mobile app for every get your podcast. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics.

>> as the 2024 presidential campaign continues american history tv presents its series the stork president to elections. learn about the pivotal issues of different errors, uncover what made these elections the story and exposure lasting impact on the nation. this saturday election of 1960. >> and for those millions of americans who are still denied equality of rights and opportunity, i say there shall be the greatest progress in human rights since the days of lincoln 100 utica. >> we stand today on the edge of a new frontier, the frontier of the 1960s, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils. the frontier of unveiled hope and unfilled threats. >> and the clothes and

controversial election democratic senator john kennedy defeated incumbent republican vice president richard nixon. watch the store presidential elections saturday at 7 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span2. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> are you thinking this is just a community center? no. it's way more than that. comcast is partnering with community centers to create wi-fi enabled lift zones so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span is a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front-row seat to democracy. >> martin luther king iii help lead a discussion on voting rights, hate speech and civil rights. his organization the drum major

institute cohosted this conference along with mi familia vota. realtor from sergio gonzales from the hairs for president campaign. former capitol police officer harry dunn, and the president of rock the vote carolyn dewitt. >> good morning. i'm going to do only did this last week. i have 16 old daughter and you will sound like when i wake up for school in the morning. so one more time. good morning. >> good morning. >> welcome to the university of district of columbia. thank you for joining us today. please take your seat, and at the risk of sounding like an amc commercial, take a moment to silence your phone. my name is andrea waters king and i'm the president of the drum major institute, along with

hector sanchez of mi familia vota, our cohost, we are thrilled to have you with us for this powerful conversation at this historic moment. just one month before a very consequential election. we have an impressive group of speakers join us to discuss them with the most pressing issues, facing us as a nation as our community both african-americans and latino are confronting very similar challenges. my hope for today is we come away with solutions and inspirations to stop the rising tide of hate in this nation and to stop the erosion of our democracy, and protect our hard-won rights. democracy is not about special rights for some. it's about the right to exist for us all.

the road ahead is one that we're committed to working together, and today we will be discussing how together we are building what dr. martin luther king, jr. called the beloved community, through peace, justice, and equity. and we are here at udc with the next generation of leaders are being educated. before we start i would like to turn stage over to the president of the university of district of columbia, please welcome doctor eddington. [applause] >> thank you. good morning. i want to start by welcoming each of you to the university of the district of columbia. i'm maurice eddington, the tenth president of this wonderful institution, , and it is indeedn honor and a pleasure for us to be the host of this powerful,

impactful event today. what better place to be the host in a public university for the district of columbia that serves district residents where 80% of our student population are black and brown students, first-generation students and with foster economic mobility, where we transform lives, power people and communities. so the mission, focusing back, with these two wonderful organizations align perfectly with who we are and what we are as a university. i want to thank you all for thinking of us as you all put together your program and your plan and allowing us to play, just a minor role in today's activities. and i certainly want to recognize our honored guests, andrea waters king, martin luther king iii, the drum major institute, hector sanchez barba

of the mi familia vota can. in addition i would like extend warm welcome to sergio gonzales, deputy chief of staff vice presidents kamala harris, future president. harris-walz 2024. our moderators jonathan capehart of msnbc, -- of axios, of the hill, all of our panelists, or civil rights leaders and activists. we look for to learning from you today about current challenges facing our community is, solutions on how we can advance. udc is the nation's capital only public university we are proud to be a flagship institution. we are -- life-changing opportunity place for students can earn a claim basically everything they can often higher ed. you can get a workforce certificate. you can get it to your degree, a four-year degree a masters

degree, you can get a phd degree. you can get a law degree at this institution. and i see a lot of students, young people out in the audience, so as you continue to navigate your path forward in this opportunity make a transformative impact on the communities that you come from and you go to, we hope that you consider the dynamic vibrant institution as you deliberately your future. i begin want you to know udc is an exceptional place. we are very happy to have you all there today. well welcomed with open arms and hopefully you'll get a chance to see other parts of a beautiful campus. so welcome and we hope you have a very impactful session today. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you, doctor edington. one of the things that made the civil rights movement so powerful in the 1960s was the diversity of the voices involved, the active and vocal

involvement of our religious leaders is as important today as it was a then. today on the eve of rosh hashanah we are keeping with this important tradition have invited three of our religious leaders to set the tone for this important conference today. we are pleased to welcome them and the message of unity, the reverend leonard hamilton, the rabbi levi shankar, and imam to leave sharif and it will, in that order. [applause] >> on this morning ungrateful to be invited as well as to share any powerful moment such as of this. with the king's, the organizations that are coming together. there are key moments when we are invited to see further than the moment that we are standing

in. this is one of those moments pixel as we know prayer is important. we've been invited to share prayers as well to start us not from just what our future plane but to see where we are going. so i you to join me. as we gather on this day software you think will come humbled yet hopeful, and our gathering this morning we are reminded of the power that is within us, the service that is able to come from us as a connection that is shared between us. bless this gathering in order that we might see the vision on the road ahead and embrace the work of building beloved community through peace, justice, and equity. may we strengthen our resolve and a spirit of dr. martin luther king, jr., remembering his words that were true then and they are still ringing true today that we are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today.

we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. and in this unfolding conundrum of life in history there is such a thing as being too late. there is no time for apathy or complacency. this is a time for vigorous and positive action. so may we strive now in the days ahead to lift one another, to serve one another, most of all to love one another. bless this space ever presented, analyst, attendees, so that now we may been the more part of the universe towards justice. may we be so transformed that we will be committed to seeing more than what we've seen, hearing more than what we've heard, so that we will do more than what we've ever done. fill this conference with joy, values, vision, and relationships that will mold us, inspire us, but above all unite

us. may we commit ourselves to the noble struggle for equal rights, justice, peace and love. knowing that to these commitments we will be better persons. we will be a stronger community. we will be a greater nation and ultimately the final -- finder world. may we open our eyes to the neighbors, communities, nation and world around us so that we would be transformed through your presence within us, that we might rise above the witness that are present down upon his. this would ask on this beautiful and opportune day. amen.

>> as we gather for your conference i want to offer the following prayerful words. i never got to meet dr. king. he was murdered in the month i was born, but i did get to meet his disciple and colleague, john lewis who told me a lot about him. and to paraphrase what was said on the night when we honored him, he manage to carry the legacy of staring down the worst of humanity with the best of humanity, namely weapons, but the union of the spirit and soul. with a big choice coming up, and as i am a release later i'm not partisan, and this institution is majority almost entirely african-american.

you have a choice between two people who want to lead this nation. one is himself an african american woman, proud to be so, has worked very hard to challenge the scourge of substance abuse, done hard work in the arena of the right to vote. and on the other hand, you have someone who largely increased hbcu funding, i saw up close the work done with people of all races to enact criminal justice reform and a man who in his private life desegregated a country club called a log of the day after he bought it. it's very difficult to know how to navigate, and it is very, very close. like you i assume i was heartened last night by each of the vice presidential candidates promising the other that should

they win, other will support them. it reminds me of the story of my own mentor of blessed memory who was awarded the congressional gold medal i would say larger with the efforts of john lewis. and we all remember those terrible crown heights riots were misunderstanding exploded into violence, and the first african-american mayor of new york city at the time david dinkins came to the reverend and said what do i do to bring together the two sides? and the reverend answered there's only one effective way. to convince the people on both sides that we are all ultimately on the same side. we in america have to become ultimately on the same side, as hard as it is and is deep humility as it takes. before when i write i was told

by the people backstage to meet the kings. it reminds me of a golf monarch or who i was supposed say the blessing that jewish people say upon meeting a monarch. and he was sitting on his throne and asked him respectfully if they would rise from his throne because of the name of the king of all king's and which i was to say the blessing, and he did rise. so we have two that if we are picking either in family name or the reality of leadership, there is a king above all the kings in the world, and it is to him that the jewish people will prey on the days of rosh hashanah that we all pray every day. but the jewish high holidays starting tonight and it's a very busy time for any rabbi, but i did think this was important enough to take the time to be here with you briefly. so may we say like this. dr. king said nobody is free

until everybody is free. nobody is home until everybody is whole. we all have our preferred ways to do it under preferred people who we want to lead us there but for those of us who are in religious community and those of us who must remain bipartisan, but as just a that it is a choice of the people in whatever they choose made a king of all king's bless them with success and may you all work together for the beloved community that is at peace with itself among others. and let's hope we bring ourselves as a world, as you said a finer world closer to the day when it will be a redemption for people of all creeds and colors, of all religions, of all races. and of all background. the world desperately needs to come together and we hope that day comes very soon. thank you. [applause]

>> we always begin with god almighty. reach with peace. we know that peace is integral to the work of dr. king, the family a continuum that work. peace is the hope of every human soul, but we know as he taught us and promoted there can be no peace until there is justice. we applaud the king family for being here in this apartment because this is where the work has to begin with the present, future leaders. this is our prayer. almighty god, the merciful, the same god for all of us who created us all from the wounds of our mother's and cares about us all equally, just like a mother. we humbly -- on all those families, communities that have

experienced the loss of loved ones through violence and conflict or natural disasters. may they find comfort in your presence and your promise. may you bless blessed thie to be successful in creating a sense of commitment to building a more peaceful and pluralistic society. the beloved community. may you be our bridge over troubled waters as a work to build bridges of peace over violence, love over hate, and faith over fear. clad that we fear only your displeasure, and loss of your love and guidance. grant that we do not feel dollar, grant that we do not fear to agree to disagree, grant that we use our strength to be moral and merciful amid immorality and inhumane acts. to challenge any injustice in society, grant that the purity

of the dynamic human we'll be victorious and overcome g threats to our humanity. bless us to value your mercy and your creation, and be consistent with your ways, mindful that you do not want us to be full to each other nor to be victims of cruelty but to treat all humans as the sacred creation of you, the almighty creator. always wanting the best for the space that we must share with others. grant us to reconnect with the attachment of love that is at the essence of our life in the womb of our mother's. may we want for her brother for subject would want for ourselves. they we build each other up and not tear each other done with words, harm or offensive names or jokes but rather would be the proponent of one from his tongue and hands people are safe. may we not take the one another,

hate one another or in the one another. rather, may we be brothers and sisters with one another and understand that it takes two sides to build a bridge. may our work of building be in the interest of peace and global stability, and they the excellence of this conference be received as an invitation to embrace our shared original identity as fruit of the first human atom from which came the many wonderful, beautiful diverse expressions of human life that have contributed to the beauty and strength of america. a nation of nations, i country made up of people coming together from every land, e pluribus unum. we are all under one roof, the sky. may we all be a credit to our race, the human race and value our intrinsic nature to live together intelligently and

peacefully in the spirit of universal kinship. amen. [applause] >> good morning. i martin luther king iii, chairman of the drum major institute. and and i would like to welcoh of you here today, particularly the moderators, all of the panelists, students, friends, and each and every person who is here. because all of us could have been somewhere else today, but

you have chosen to be here for this moment at this time, and we appreciate the opportunity to share today and hopefully when we get to the end of this, all these panel discussions, that we will understand and reinforce the importance of all communities working together, but certainly the black and brown community. to ultimately help realize the "dreams of my father" envisione envisioned, the community and the world, where freedom, justice, equality, peace, justice and equality exist for all humankind. this conference grew out of the vision of andrea waters king, and i'm going to present her again, although you've already seen her, the president of the drum major institute and the woman i am blessed to call my

partner and wife. perhaps also, and most important, the mother of our 16-year-old daughter. motherhood is something unusual and unique. most of us has been, as we are fathers toward children, there's a special unique bond that the mother has with their child. and especially of the little boy child or local little gir. but in this case always marvel at andrea not just for being a mother to her daughter yolanda, but to being a mother in a real sense to all girls. because that's just who she is.

and i would brag on her daughter but i won't do that today. that's for another day. andries leadership of dmi is centered on the ideal that we are all inheritors of the king legacy. we all can embrace the legacy of my father dr. martin luther king, jr. by choosing to honor the ideals of peace, justice and equity. and each will determine whether we sow seeds of chaos or community. hope for the chaos that you excuse me, hope for the -- test ironically when living in great chaos. my dad's last book entitled where do we go from here? chaos or community. we've all seen chaos for a number of years now.

but dad prophetically saw that we must build community. and that has to happen regardless of what happens in this election, community has to be built. currently as president of the drum major institute and andrew has basically dedicated her life especially against inequality and hate, and all forms of oppression. andrea plays a a critical roln creating strategic partnerships and managing the daily operations of this active social justice institution. and so now i'm very, very proud to present my wife and partner, the mother of our daughter, arndrea waters king -- arndrea rené king, , and the present of the drum major institute, arndrea waters king.

[applause] >> hello again. we are thrilled to be embarking on this historic partnership with mi familia vota. we're coming together because there is so much that unites us, and we are all committed to the change we want to see in the world. each of us, each one of us is responsible for contributing to the world we want to live in. change is not the business of a certain chosen few individuals, nor one family. it's important to have a diversity of voices who are working to make the world better for all of us. we are weaving a beautiful tapestry in the station.

it's in our diversity that makes us beautiful. diversity of choices and beliefs and strategies makes us more effective. today, we are asking what can we do? we are here together to preserve our democracy and create a path forward. i would like to recognize our cohost and a partner in the fight for advancing civil rights and building political power in our communities, mr. hector sanchez barba, the president and ceo of mi familia vota, as a leading voice in the latino community he has focus on driving policies and politics at all levels of government. during his tenure at mi familia vota, actor has helped build the largest latino grassroots organizing infrastructure in the nation and has amplified the

voices of the 63 million latinos who live here in the united states. his work has spurred latino civic engagement, and challenge voter suppression laws, opposed at the immigrant bills, and this helped advance policy priorities for latinas, and all women. mr. sanchez. [applause] >> buenos dias. on the historical moment in which we are, in this space that we must protect, our democracy and the nation is facing some of the levels of -- we've seen in our history. this is one of the only spaces were a mexican immigrant can

stand and the same stage from my perspective the most come some of the most important legacy that we have of the nation fighting for voting rights for workers or family, standing in the space with the king family. arndrea, thank you for everything that you do the drum institute. and my brother, martin, thank you for your commitment that you have for the central issues that are at small fixes of what this partnership represents. it's a partnership to meet the moment. the partnership to meet the moment to say enough, enough exclusion opportunities from the democratic process. enough of the exclusive from the system. enough for the wealth gap, enough to the attacks and all the minority in the nation's. the spirit in which we come here today.

i took a flight last night and arrived from mexico. and i was reflecting with another person that is standing in the context of what whao today, that legacy. hugo chavez, dr. king. literally on the frontlines fighting to make this a better democracy. what we're witnessing just a day from the balcony of thousands of people in mexico was election of the first woman in the history of mexico. and this means at a a time whe may be facing scrutiny in the world, we also see unique opportunity for change and opportunities. that's the spirit we are representing today. in this partnership, what we're saying is stop trying to divide us. stop trying to put us against each other.

because our fight is the same fight. our issues on the earth the same, and i will talk with them in the second period with a mostly working-class families and we have a beautiful history of fighting together to make this a more inclusive nation. the war in texas with mexico was about labor. mexico and mexicans say no, this is unacceptable. the fight of the civil rights movement led by dr. king, cesar chavez and all the rest was about the same concept of inclusion. the case of mendes in a 243 was about not segregation in mexican schools. followed by the case 1954 of brown v. board of education, we have been a community on the frontlines fighting for

inclusion, fighting for respect, fighting for a better nation. and we cannot go back. even though we hear strong forces trying to go back to medieval times, we are not going to let that happen. the last presidential election it was minorities who defeated this to all of us say no to extremism. but i didn't say that any of the national headlines in the nation, so it's pretty important for us to tell her own stories. in this partnership also goes into the central element of democracy, the legacy of dr. king fighting against voter suppression, putting everything on the line the african-american community dying for the right to vote. i had the honor to march, reflecting on those beautiful --

reflecting of imperfections of our democracy in the past if that's the same spirit in which we come today to bring not -- not intimidation, not misinformation that's what we do every day in the nation. there are reforms want to be clear that is the issue of representation. we are 35% of the population together. stop trying to pit us together. 35 almost 40% of the streets of our invitation of his life we're here together to remind the nation that together we are going to move in that direction. finally, we are also coming together -- at our issues are the issues. together we are working to raise a policy agenda, where representation to hold all politicians accountable.

and you'll see that when it comes to the economy, we have same issues. we have the highest wealth gap in the nation. we face a lot of similar issues on education, health, reproductive rights, and i'm on the board of planned parenthood and latina and african-american women are the ones facing the most exclusion. it is also with that spirit that we invited both campaigns that were holding accountable to address our issue of reach out to both campaigns. the trump campaign didn't even answer the phone or an e-mail. the harris campaign dash of what could they need and we said we need education on all policies related to the african-american and latino community. i want to be very transparent.

when it comes to the harris campaign from the first day that the vice president was in this position, literally started making calls to the leaders are committed to say what are the issues that you care about. and immediately within the next two weeks they said it meetings in person just to discuss those issues. it's not only symbolism, it's respect, the respect that we deserve eskimo disco the respect -- the respect that we need to understand because when the frontlines educating people about these issues. with that, from that perspective we invited the harris campaign and it is my pleasure, my honor to introduce hector gonzales, deputy chief of staff for hairs for president campaign, a fighter, has been with a latino

community, fighting on some issues that i cannot stand type of stuff that you do and no with this important position within the administration you are working on immigration. you accept a director of immigration and now coupled with senior policy advisor of vice president harris, et cetera pick somebody clearly has full access to the vice president and somebody that is -- just like many of our of her africn leaders at the table making sure our issues are represented. with that, thank you for coming to talk about the priorities that vice president harris has. [applause] >> buenos dias, everyone. first i want to first and foremost i want to deeply think

the drum major institute and mi familia vota for bringing us together today. the work that you're doing, the critical work to renew and strengthen efforts, to increase political engagement and the political power for black and latino voters and americans across this country is so important in this moment. also my thanks to my good friend hector sanchez barba we've been friends and work together long time. i started working with hector when i was at u.s. office of personnel management and hector was fighting to increase representation of latino employees incumbent. we know representation matters. now hector is legal but of the largest latino organizations in the country that is doing unprecedented work to get out the latino vote. thank you hector. to the king family, including the board chair, martin luther king iii, and president arndrea waters king, i am deeply humbled and honored to be here with you today. as a child i never would imagine

that would be sitting in front of you giving a speech. the legacy of course your family and your father mean so much to the country into me personally. just a little bit of note about myself. my grandfather was a civil rights leader as well. for those who know him, he led the chicana rights movement in the southwest. he marched alongside cesar shabbos and dolores huerta. he fought against against this commission schools. he fought for the power of education that unlocks opportunity and equality and justice. he should many of the same values that your father had and your family had, and martin luther king, jr. was an icon and hero to my grandfather. under the because he wrote about it. and so i grew up at a young age very aware of the important work of your father the legacy of your family. my grandfather used to talk to me about the coalition work

between black and latino leaders of winning to the poor people's march. and he also worked very closely with black leaders and activists and grassroots leaders and own committed in colorado to enact change, to erect real change. so i just want to say i'm deeply humbled. very appreciative to beer with you today and to be invited to give this speech. earlier this year on january 16 vice president harris visited columbia, south carolina, to deliver remarks at the dell. like to rent an excerpt from a a speech to you today. she said we honor the legacy of reverend doctor luther king junior, a visionary who saw -- by what has been an organizer of the moved the mind, the hearts and the feet of the american people. a leader who dedicated his life and in the end gave his life to advance one of our nation's highest ideals, the ideal of freedom.

freedom is fundamental to the promise of america. freedom is not to be given to it is not be bestowed. it is ours pyrites. and in many ways the story of american has been a story of our fight to realize that promise. and, of course, we know in this country there has been progress, thanks to martin luther king, jr., thanks to the work of people like my grandfather and dolores huerta and the leaders who standard today, , from the civil rights act of 1964 to the election of barack obama as our nation's first black president, to the first black woman to tonja brent jackson to serve on the supreme court, and yes, the election of the first lacked woman to be vice president of these united states. there has been progress. and still today as hector said we are witnessing a full on attack on our hard fought, hard-won rights and freedom.

consider this. states across our nation today extremes are attacking the sacred freedom to vote. they pass laws to ban dropboxes can limit early voting and restrict absentee ballots in places like a like a geos recently as two weeks ago local officials wanted to thwart the will of voters. this of course is the same place where donald trump asked the secretary of state in 2020 to find more votes, quote-unquote. and just last night for those who tuned into the vice presidential debate between j. d. vance in tim walz, j. d. vance, donald trump's running mate, refuse to acknowledge the results of the 2020 election when he was pressed. this is of course a dangerous continuation of the politics that led to the insurrection at the capital and what happened on january 6th. we here in this room, i believe that each of us know, this is no

ordinary election. this is not. and we know that this election is truly consequential for black and latino americans and voters across our country, for the very heart of our democracy and the protection of our rights and freedoms. in colombia the vice president continued, six decades ago from the steps of lincoln memorial dr. king spoke to our nation to thousands of americans would marched that in washington. he spoke to what he called a promissory note, a promissory note, a check that it inside to the american people and the declaration of independence and the united states constitution. dr. king's voice rang out when he said we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt pixel we have come to cash this check, check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. i bring that thought, that promise, that child and you here

today, and also want want to talk about vice president, paris and how she is with the champion and the fighter -- kamala harris, we need to make this a reality. she represents the american promise herself. from a young age she valued family and unity and making the world a better place. of course she was born in oakland, california. father an economist from jamaica, , her mother a scientit from india. as children five present would go with her parents to civil rights marches. she grew up in the civil rights movement. they instilled in her a commitment to build strong coalitions to fight for the rights and freedoms of all people. they brought her to the marches in a stroller and taught her heroes like supreme court justice thurgood marshall remains an inspiration to vice president harris today. i would just like to note that 57 years ago today, supreme court justice thurgood marshall was sworn in to the united states supreme court. i would like a soap to take a

moment to thank him for his contributions for his service to this country. the vice president grew up in working-class middle-class family. she learned the values of hard work early on. her mother would work long hours, and her mother leaned on a trusted circle in the community to support her and her daughters. she ran a small business and rent that they care below the vice president and her sister and her mom's house as she became a second mother figure. the vice president decided to pursue law because she does everyone is right to say to come dignity and justice. at an age she decided she wanted to become a lawyer, she saw our civil rights heroes took passion from the streets to the courtroom. she also witnessed when she was in high school for best friend, our best friend this close to her that she was being sexually abused by her stepfather. the vice president told a friend that she had to go live with her and her mother. this was a moment when she knew she wanted to take on work any

crew to keep people in committee sacred she was on to become a a prostitute was inspired to protect women and girls. prosecuting cases of sexual assault and domestic violence. as district attorney of san francisco she could the states first human traffic ally with after polluters, creating one of the first of our mental justice units in the country. she attacked the root causes of crime with a launch a program such as background check. a california attorney general should took on the big banks. she won $20 billion for homeowners. she cracked down transnational gangs and she took on auditory for-profit colleges. she also refused to defend prop eight. for those of you who are not aware what that was, that was a law in california that was passed that outlawed same-sex marriage. the vice president refuse to defend this in court, and then when the supreme court provided forcing sex marriage the vice president performed the first

same-sex marriage california. this is significant because it talks to you and tells you about the vice president bounty. each router injustice. it's rooted in equity. in the transcend should ship in legislation to provide relief support to small business, when relief, and approved lack maternal healthcare and, of course, we remember those cemeteries where she took on officials and nominees from the trump administration that threatened equality and threatened justice, including the right to reproductive freedom. as vice president, kamala harris has led work on reproductive rights. since the fall of dobbs that was caused by donald trump because he hand selected three justices to the united states supreme court with the full intention stripping away the right to an abortion, the rights that were provided under roe v. wade. she has convened over 80 convenience across the country, many of women focused on

fighting back against efforts to strip away women's rights and the right to an abortion and reproductive care. she has led on expanding medicaid, postpartum coverage from three states to 46 dates. of course it's an issue that is particularly important to black women in black moms. she leads the first-ever office of white house, of the gun violence prevention that was, that exist as result of the first major gun safety laws that was passed in nearly three decades. she is a leader on the world stage for she traveled to over 20 countries added that with over 150 world leaders on efforts of tackling climate change to security of fraud and our vision until just last year as her sitter at this college campus i'd like to note she launched a fight for freedom store where she went to nearly a dozen hbcus and hsi's across the country to talk directly with young people about the issues that matter most to them.

it was in these conversations that the vice president talked about things like fighting gun violence, efforts to build and expand economic opportunity, investments in hbcus and hsi's, investment in minority owned small businesses and entrepreneurs. and now we know in this election there is a clear choice, there is a clear split screen. we saw that at the debate between vice president harris and donald trump. this is no ordinary election. on one side we had a candidate who has an agenda to build the middle-class come to bring us forward or backwards, to to protect our fundamental rights and freedoms, to ensure that every person has the opportunity not just get by but get head. and on the other side we have donald trump who is running on an extreme agenda that threatens our democracy, threatens our freedoms and would be a disaster for working people in the middle class. the vice president has put

forward a very aggressive agenda to build the middle class, everything from expanding the building of people to buy homes for first-time homebuyers. we know this is particularly important black and brown can produce. $25,000 credit for first-time homebuyers, 3 million new homes, ensuring that we are cracking down on price gouging so people can afford their groceries, chewing we protecting healthcare, riding big pharma to lower the cost of insulin prescription drugs. this is particularly important to black and brown communities. all these issues matter so much at that particular because of the disproportionate way that our communities are impacted by these very issues. there's an entire agenda i could talk about from tax cuts for working thumbs to childcare tax credit, expanding paid leave and childcare. the vice president knows this is important because this is what matters to americans including black and latino voters. and on the other side we have a candidate who is not about the working people.

he is about himself. he's made that clear time and time again, right? gave tax cuts to the super wealthy and very rich. he is more interest in protecting the people who own the skyscrapers and people build the skyscrapers. and so this election when it comes to the economy is a very clear contrast when it comes to our economy, when it comes to building economic opportunity, but also when it comes to the essential foundation of democracy in this country. donald trump continues to battle extreme rhetoric, and when someone shows you who they are, be lead them. when he says he's going to be dictator on day one, when he says he's going to weaponized the department of justice against his enemies, when he talks about a really quote-unquote violent day to address safety concerns in communities, we know what that means. when he uses alarming and dark

language from disturbing chapters of the past, he says immigrants are poisoning, pollution the blood of america. where have we heard that before? and he promises to deport millions of people, separating them from the fans come maybe so been here for decades or longer and says that pouring them will be a quote-unquote bloody business. this is violent extreme rhetoric. this is not normal. ring the alarm bells. we have to do everything we possibly can to make sure that our communities are aware of what is at stake in this election, to make sure we're registering people to vote. people are voting across the country right now. we still have not met registration deadlines. there still time register to vote in many of our key battleground states. we need to make sure we're getting out the word. we must fight with her voice, with her feet, most of all with our vote to this election. i want to thank all of you for

inviting us here today, for having the campaigners speak you about our priorities. i truly the work you're doing is a critically important because together we must go forward not back. thank you. [applause] and. >> are right. were going to take a very quick lunch break. if anyone could have a quick bite in the back and you see at 12:30. we will get right to our first panel. thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> this gets a bit hard. i hope the food fueled you and is not lowland you to sleep. i know with this next panel they're going to continue to

raise the energy here. we had some wonderful, wonderful conversation that's about to happen. and it was great to see so many of you all during that very brief lunch, lunch break. before we begin our first panel i would like to acknowledge and thank each of our speakers for joining us today during a very, very important presidential election season. i do want to know that we did invite both campaigns to be with us today, and we were very pleased to have been joined by the harris campaign. thank you again to sergio gonzales for outlining their policy priority for black and brown community. what a wonderful way to focus the importance of our conversation here today. now on to our panel discussion. our first distinguished panel of experts is here to discuss

realizing the dream of democracy. how do we preserve democracy when the rights of women and girls are being eroded? when women's bodies are more regulated than guns in our nation? when the right to vote is actively under attack, and voter misinformation and disinformation is rampant? i am thrilled to hear from our distinguished panelists about the role of education in preserving democracy, how diverse voices, black, brown, lgbtq women can and must play a vital role in the fight to preserve our democracy. and how we can work to build our communities that are focused on the common good. moderating this panel is the wonderful jonathan capehart composed of msnbc saturday sunday show with jonathan

capehart, one of our favorite journalists i have to say. we have been, we work with him a few times. to lead this important discussion. jonathan, thank you for being here at the turn it over to you. >> -- and i turn it over to you. [inaudible] >> there we go. hold it like this. but thank you, mrs. king, and

mr. king for asking me to moderate this panel. a lot of people on the panel and not a lot of time on just going to introduce them all to you. the man sitting next to me i'm sure you probably heard from and you know, martin luther king iii, chairman of the drum major institute picnics to ms. professor harold mcdougal from the howard university school of law. brandon wall is a national press secretary at the human rights campaign. and fatima goss graves, president and ceo of the national women's law center. thank you very much for being you. love for this to be a nice engaging conversations on going to start with this, this general question and patina, start with you and then we will come this way. what you see, lots of threats to democracy what you see as the greatest threat to democracy? how do we get people engaged in protecting our democracy?

two questions. >> first, i am so very thrilled to be here and be on the stage with you. so i am going to i think name the courts as a great threat to democracy in part because i think people don't often think about the fundamental role that the courts and the rule of law play in a healthy democracy. but i think we're in deep trouble actually in terms of our courts. we are in deep trouble in part because of the way in which the court has been deprived the entire nominations process. we know we are in deep trouble in part because of the many, many really alarming at the poll reporting an ethical violations that we've seen in sort of the cavalier response that we seen from the court, the supreme court itself. you know, reporting a supreme

court justices taking private jets and fancy vacations and homes, and the responses that all of it of a shrug, which tells me they don't feel very accountable to each other, very accountable to the other branches of government, or, or to the public and the sort of project of democracy. so that part has me deeply worried. and when you square that with decisions especially in the last couple of years where they have again really cavalierly overturned 50, six years of precedence, and, and even in the phase not just of law that justices should go the other way, tradition that suggest she should go of the way, but actually tell us about the court. the court is deeply out of step with the public and with i think what its role should be.

.. >> for the african-americans, of course, were, you know, they were the be all and end all, for you, i'd love to hear from you what you think the greatest threat to democracy is and if you have any reaction to what was just said. >> and that does it, wow.

>> yeah, it's very interesting. because you think as a lawyer that that's what i would be focused on, but one of the continuation that we saw in the civil rights movement and the great work that thurgood marshall did. thurgood marshall was supervised and houston's original inclusion in was spurred by engagement into the community. if you'd asked me what is the most dangerous thing, i think it's the erosion and disengagement of the community as a whole. the power of the civil rights movement wasn't just in the courts, it was the people mobilized on the streets and the interconnection between the street work and the court work was very, very powerful. in the 2000 election, one of the democratic primary--

democratic candidates who didn't survive the primaries was a guy named bill bradley was a rhodes scholar, a senator and also, i think, a star-- wyatt an all-around guy. he had a metaphor that he used when he gave a speech to the national conference of mayors. he said that american society is like a three legged stool, there's the government leg, a business leg, and a community leg. he said the government leg and the business legs are really long and the community leg is really short. as a result the whole thing is unstable. what my work has been about, really, is about growing our community so that it can balance the other two. you can talk more about that later, but that's my perspective. >> i love how this is all segued, listening to professor mcdougall made me think of the work you've done and are doing

at the human rights campaign. are you -- i would love to know what you think is the greatest threat to democracy, picking up on what professor mcdougall said, do you see that erosion, the erosion and disengagement of the community that he's talking about? >> (inaudible) >> oh, now i do it. i'm sorry to make you run up here some times. yeah, thank you for the question. i think these thoughts are really important. i also, i just want to acknowledge and i see a lot of young faces out there, which is very exciting and i think it's the perfect audience to be having this conversation in front of and i want to drill down on the community and that is i think the greatest threat to democracy right now is isolation and it's kind of ironic because we live in a digital age that is possibly more connected than ever before. we can connect with people

we've never met. we can connect with people half a world away to learn things about their communities that we didn't think possible before, but it's also created these silos that we live in, silos that we get information from. if i go online and read through my twitter feed or watching tik tok videos, ai in the form of algorithm is feeding me things that reaffirm my world view, feeding me information that tells me i'm the smartest person on the planet and anyone that disagrees with me is wrong and creates this sense of isolation from other people inside the community and the reason i think that's the greatest threat to democracy is that, you know, by its nature, democracy is not an individual activity, it's a group project and it requires us to work together all the time in complex complicated situations, often when we don't agree with each other, right? it's about finding solutions together, but if we live in these isolated silos, where we're innoculated from other

world views, we're never forced to work together on that group project. it leaves us fighting, just in our echo chamber and the other thing i think that it opens the door to is mis and disinformation. we are going to talk about that, but when you replace fact-based information with a segment, siloed version that leaves people listening to someone who doesn't have any idea what they're talking about, but has a massive following on tik tok leaves us open and susceptible to m miss and disinformation and turns out 99% of what they said isn't true. i think in terms of building community, i think that isolation is the greatest threat to democracy and finally, i think you asked about solving it, what do we do to fix it? we have to talk to people and we have to talk to people

face-to-face and break bread and sit across the table and do that in spaces even when it's hard, even when people disagree with us. even when we're bringing entirely different world views and perspectives to things because that at its core is democracy. democracy is messy, it's complicated, but it requires us to sit at the same table and have those conversations. >> and we're-- and i want to talk about that because i don't know. sometimes that could be -- you might be asking too much of people, but i want to come back to that and mr. king you've heard what everyone had to say and what do you view as the greatest threat to democracy and what we can do to protect our democracy? >> so it truly is -- thank you for that question and a compilation of everything that we've heard and then some. i think there were, there were

clear lines delineation that people could understand. today it's easy to get distracted when you have a dysfunctional government in relationship to the trifecta of powers, meaning the executive, legislative and judicial. and clearly checks and balances-- i'm sorry, checks and balances don't exist enough, particularly as it relates to the court because they obviously see themselves as above any and everyone in doing anything. you have a regulation authority over lower courts, but you yourself have no regulations. there's something redwing with that. the system is broken. now, i'm not trying to be negative, i just want to be realistic and say, people have to be engaged. you know, it's no mistake that it says we the people. unfortunately, we the people don't know who we are. when you don't know who you are, you sometimes make very,

very bad mistakes. when people engaged changes come. we have the ability to address any issues in our nation and in our world. we just have not found the will and as we say sometimes, as has been said some operating in single silos, that cannot be the solution. it is really tough to be able to engage in dialog sometimes with those who we disagree with, but it has been done in the past. the modern civil rights movement showed us that you can disagree without being disagreeable. in fact, maybe 15, 25 years ago, maybe not that long, our congress was able to disagree without being disagreeable. a new force has emerged that has created a dysfunctionalization and a dysfunctionalization becomes personalized and is not sustainable. for example. we all in this nation have a

choice to make. are we going to find a way to disagree without being disagreeable or are we going to, you know, my father projected humankind must learn about violence or we'll face nonexistence. his last book, where do we go from here? chaos or community? we are seeing chaos every day, but by the same token, there's a community, a vernier that's underneath that and we don't see that because you've got a nation that has a mainstream media which its mantra is, if it bleeds, it leads. in other words, we're dysfunctional and sick and don't even know it. until we acknowledge the fact that there are problems that we can change, nothing is unresolvable. it's just that at this particular moment we are not addressing it because we are too much against each other as opposed to, you know, we've got

to turn to each other and stop turning on each other and that's the climate that has to be created. that's where the solutions begin. you know, building community, what was talked about, everything that we're talking about, whether it's around civil rights. education for all. we live in a nation with the greatest resources in the world and yet, we have a poor system of education. we have-- i mean, in this country, we are blessed so much. we should have the best education for every child. we should have the best health care for every child, every person. we should have decent jobs for everyone who needs or wants to work. we should have the best housing. the housing doesn't have to be 10,000 square feet. it could be the circumference of where we are here. a decent home and we should have justice. and that does not exist. we have to create that climate and then we have to rebuild this system that we call a

democratic system that in theory should work. i'm going to go a little bit further. probably than i need to, but it's all right. why do we have an electoral college? how do you tell me we live in a democratic system and somebody gets-- if you can only get x amount-- let's say 10,000 votes and somebody else gets 8,000 votes and the person with 8,000 votes wins? something is wrong with that. that's not democracy. if democracy as it was designed, but we need not just to talk about it, but a constructive way, electoral college needs to be done. it is not relevant other than for some people, but if you're talking about true democracy i always thought the majority rules, that's where it is in most things, but not in presidential election which we say is the most important election in our lives. so we work-- the reality is we've got a lot

of work to do. >> (applause) >> and i love the fact that the applause was started by young folks. i want to come back to just talk to people and you've all addressed it, brandon that was your big point. here is my issue, i'm all for talking to people, but we have gotten to the point where, one, folks don't agree on the same facts, so we believe two plus two equals four about you somebody else might say, no, it's two plus two equals five. the other thing, and this sticks in my craw, is that the demand for respect for one point of view seems to be one way and it's usually the person with the disinformation who is the one that's demanding that you respect their point of view. so for folks here and folks

watching online, how should individuals combat disinformation they come across in their own lives? what is the best approach, especially, and i'd throw this in, especially when the person on the other side is either disrespectful or doesn't want to see your humanity or even acknowledge your dignity? i'll far with you-- i'll start with you. part of the way that disinformation has been recognized in this team has actually created dangers, so it's perfectly reasonable for people to sort of want to turn away or turn the page when someone is coming at them. i think about the way it's been misused, you know, in the -- in early parts of the pandemic when schools were closed and

people were working and caring at the same time. it was very true and reasonable that moms, especially in this country, were carrying a huge load, right? what happened though is that you took that very real problem and pain that people were feeling and said the reason that schools are closed and they aren't doing what you want, it's crt. they're focused on dei, they're focused on trans kids so when i think about how you jump in and you have to actually address also the real pain people are experiencing because it was actually the case that people who were caregivers were experiencing pain and no one was talking to them about their real pain, about what was actually making life hard for them. and so what we have to find ways that aren't dangerous, right? we have to find ways to actually talk to people who we

know in real life and stay and do that hard work of being in community with them rather than writing them off. because they are unlikely to trust a source, true or not, from someone they don't know. so that that sort of anecdote that we have in this time to disinformation is community, are people who you trust, is being in relationship with people. and so i take that charge very seriously and at the same time it has been truly weaponized and made like less safe for trans young people around the country, for teachers, for black folks everywhere. so, we have to be able to hold ways for people to be in community, but also be protected as they do so. >> yeah, well, first of all, i

want to co-sign everything you just said and it really does come back to community building. if you enter into a conversation with the goal of simply winning or beating someone over the head with your point of view, you've started from a losing position, right? the idea of democracy is working together to find solutions with people that you care about who know and love and trust you, and so, you enter these informations from that lens, from a place of love and trust. and i'll use a really, maybe salient example for me personally, which is my dad. my dad and i will agree about almost nothing. and i won't expose him on his political space, but we agree on almost nothing and our conversations are really hard. i came out when i was 17. i was outed when i was 17 and from that point forward we've always had a really difficult time understanding each other. but all those years later, he

still answers my phone calls and we still have conversations and i don't start the phone call by saying what do you think about the vice-presidential debate. i start by saying how is grandma and what are you working on around the house. we might get to the vice-presidential debate if i'm feeling emotionally up to that, but we approach our relationship with trusten love and that means that that relationship has resilience to it, and have conversations what is true in the world and the kind of things that we've built together. i'm reminded in of the height of pandemic when i was growing frustrated talking to him regularly because every time we had a conversation it was rife with misinformation and roving bands of antifa are roaming oregon and levels the q-anon. it was hard, it felt like i was speaking to someone i knew anymore because it had been so

lost in disinformation and i really thought about, you know, taking a break from our conversations. someone else in my family and said, i want you to know how much i value your conversations with your dad, you're the only lifeline with reality. nobody else can have those conversations with him and you're the only to bring back to these things. it is our responsibility to know the spaces we occupy where we're the trusted messenger we've built deep meaningful relationships with trust and love and throws are the places where we have to have difficult, complex conversations, you know, my dad may never turn on your show on sunday and say that jonathan has changed my mind, but-- >> maybe when you're on. >> maybe when i'm on, but i can take the bits of information that you're sharing with me, go back and enter that trusted, loving space with my dad and have a conversation he may not

be willing to have with anyone else, that's the really tough work that we have to do in communities. >> please. [applause] >> okay. i did it myself. yeah, what you're saying is really important and what you're talking about ultimately balms something that's called social capital. i've done a lot of research or writing on something that i call civic infrastructure. the trick is now, how do you take what he was talking about and how do you build that into something that is, you know, there's a couple of experiments that in this country and in sweden, they're called study circles. you bring people together. the magic number seems to be 12 for some reason. people keep coming back to that, that's how many disciples there were, how many people on a jury and something in our genetic engineering that makes it difficult for us to have real conversations with people

in groups larger than say 14 to 15, they have to be small and the kind of intimacy and trust that he was talking about can arise in conversations that are that size. the trick is that conversations and the groups that come together in that size are not big enough to respond to most of the large scale kinds of problems that you guys are talking about, the courts, the electoral college, whatever it is, so what do you do? >> i've been looking at that for about 20 years and about 10 years ago, i was introduced to one of thomas jefferson's black descendents, a guy named don edwards and he was looking at something that jefferson tried to get put into the original constitution called ward republic. these are like, i'll tell you how they work in a minute, but obviously, thomas jefferson has a little bit of-- a little bit of shade on him because of all the stuff that he did, but i will tell you--

>> all the stuff, all the stuff. okay, go on. [laughter] >> enough said, but i will tell you that the way this goes is that the model he was talking about, he copied from -- who are not in the same that jefferson was, and you get like seven families, the magic number was seven, not 12. you get seven families and each family has one representative and they come together and they form a consul, a committee, a committee of seven. each committee of seven families takes one person and they sit on a conference that is now representing 49 families. each conference of 49 families had one delegate who went to what was called a citizen's assembly. the citizen's assembly was going to elect your member of congress directly. so that your member of congress would be elected through face-to-face conversations that

were taking place throughout the community. i've seen this actually -- this was the iroquois, but i've seen this in places all around the world. this is the traditional way that africans make decisions, traditional way that people in south asian indians made decisions and they have some extra kind of features. for one thing, they tend to be-- the women tended to be much more powerful in these congregations than the men did. also, they had the power of recall, so you elect somebody, your assembly elects somebody, a member of congress and he's supposed to be following what the folks at the grass roots levels have been talking about and what they want. if he strays from that, pull them right back. can you imagine? i mean, right now, we have a congress where it seems to be just kind of, you know, run away. we talk about democracy,

democracy is us casting our votes every four years and two years or six, what happens in between the elections we have nothing to do with. can you imagine if we had that kind of power? [applause] >> so then, mr. king, how would you -- how would you go about -- i'm sure you've had many conversations with people across the table who might not agree with you, but have you had conversations with people who clearly are struggling with a disinformation or misinformation and expounding it back to you? how do you engage that person especially if it's someone who you don't have this close personal relationship with? because i think that's where most of the clashes come in, when there isn't that bond,

that personal bond. >> that is a very, very challenging question to answer. what i would start off with, however, is everything is energy. we don't always acknowledge that, but maybe eventually come to it. and the funny thing about where i stand is many people, you know, sort of use that as a smorgasbord. even people on extremely opposite facts, not those who are severely racist, but most or many people, whether you're on the right or the left, find ways to embrace some of the verbiage of that, it's not always interpreted correctly. so i'm always willing to challenge people on the interpretation or at least to

look at the whole statement in context. you know, i think that because there's an automatic initial level of some respect, there's an ability to sort of communicate and as i said, i think that dad focused, and my mom, on teaching us how to disagree without being disagreeable. that is real. the question is, does it really-- can you really change a person? i think that we change people by our actions, and our interactions. and if -- we somehow have to maintain our dignity. we start off with treating everybody with dignity and respect. the problem is that's not always reciprocated. everyone is not going to always be respectful, but you have to

figure out how do i demand a level of respect from you and i give you that as well. as opposed to wanting to just overshadow you. so, it's a complicated issue. i would have to say my interactions personally though have always been very positive. that's because i start off from a positive perspective. it does not mean that a person has to totally agree with me. that's fine. you don't have to. but i would want to share as much information so that you can at least consider. part of the problem is we are all sometimes relegated to a box or living in a glass house because this is what you hear 24/7 and i'm going to use an example, i don't want to use, but i'm going to use it anyway. okay, fox news says they're fair and balanced.

well, where do you see that? if you're thinking. but why do you believe that? because that's what they tell you all day long. they're fair and balanced, how do you know? because they told us that, that doesn't mean they are. that can be with any slogan, i just used fox. but if you listen to any of our news outlets. it's programming us. it's no longer-- back when i was growing up, i'm going to date myself and many of you won't know this, but walter cronkite and several others on the news they were truly just delivering the news. they didn't tell you what they thought-- what you thought you saw or what they thought you saw or what they wanted you to see, but you didn't see. this is what happens today we're told stuff over and over again that's just not true. if you don't know it's not true then you embrace it, but when

you-- even when you present facts sometimes, people don't hear the facts, they have different facts, as you started off, jonathan. and it's complicated time and complicated issues. i think first we build coalitions with those who have a level of agreement because you've got to start there, but you build a very, very strong coalition and then you begin to reach out to others. i mean, you know, we have a problem with history in this nation, period. i don't know how we talk about history all the time and we leave out the indigenous population, you know? we've got a lot of problems with the black community, the latino and hispanic community has a lot of problems. maybe europeans communities, some have problems. poor whites have problems in america, as poor blacks do. but we don't even talk about-- we're acting like the

indigenous population wasn't here and they tell us every day, they still teach columbus found america, so, columbus got lost and there were people here, i don't know if you find something when somebody was already here if the interpretation of what is said. somehow we have to go back and deal with truth, the real truth. that's not a diminish what columbus did or to diminish what those called founding fathers did. i know we're going to have a conversation about that later, but we have a lot to overcome and i guess i'm concerned more so today about what is going to happen with the advent of false information because of ai. ai is amazing, but it's also very concerning as to how do you build guardrails. you can build guardrails with allies, but how do you build guardrails with russia and

north korea and other places in the world where there are real problems. the middle east, where there are real problems. how do you build the guardrails around information that, i mean, certainly the medical arena is going to be great things happening there, but the fact that you can say you're somebody that you're not. or you can totally displace someone's identity. i'm just saying that these are all things that we have to deal with. in addition to saving our democracy. >> right. >> and that is a nice segue into talking about the role of education in preserving our democracy. i don't know how many of you saw this clip from an interview that jacob did on msnbc with a focus group watching the debate and i believe the young man's name was marcus. a young black guy who jacob says, you said something to me during the debate, why don't

you repeat it and basically gave a civics lesson and they're talking-- j.d. vance is saying that the vice-president is supposed to do that. anyone who has taken a civic course knows that the vice-president doesn't have any power. the vice-president does what the president says. and for him to say that and for that to get as much attention as it did just sort of highlights the fact that education in civics and how our country works and how government works is another thing that has eroded. and i want to move away from that, and there's been talk how nobody is taught anything in grade school. and talk about weaponizing education and weaponizing-- yeah, weaponizing education to the point where teachers are afraid. teachers are afraid. librarians are afraid. lots of people are afraid to teach objective facts and

fatima, the organization, the national women's law center released a new report last week entitled i don't know how much longer i can do this, teachers experiences, amid attacks on public education. tell us quickly about that report and what you found out. >> we're really proud of our new report. we were really trying to explore how teachers went from a real public understanding as being heroes, being essential workers, to so deeply demonized in such a short period and we wondered how they're faring. you know, teachers have been the site of violent attacks, of smears and a range of new laws and rules that make it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs, and so, we surveyed teachers in states like

michigan and pennsylvania and florida and georgia and what we heard was really distressing. we heard from that, i don't know how much longer i can continue to do this. we also, you know, there was a teacher in michigan that really stood out and talked how she was terrified of being fired for teaching a controversial subject and the controversial subject was racism. so that we have moved the line and made it impossible for them to do their job. teachers, you know, they understand that the way to get a kid to learn is to build a deep relationship with them and yet, they're being told, it is illegal to recognize their humanity, to address them by the name they prefer, to address them by their own pronounce, and so they're in this impossible box and so we really believe fundamentally that it's not an accident that teachers have been such a site

of vitriol because it's a job that a lot of women do, it's not only to devalue the work that women do, but additional site for hate and anger in this time where there is so much hate and anger toward women that we're seeing, more accepted culturally. >> i want to-- since we have a lot of young people here in the audience, how many of you are actually of voting age? okay. that's great. how many of you right now as we're sitting here right now, 34, 35 days out before the election, how many of you are going to vote? okay. i have hope for the future. because all of you-- >> i'm not going to lie, i was

very nervous when you asked that question. >> thank you, brandon, it's not just me and i'm being very serious, because you know, you read in the newspapers and you hear on television that you know, young people aren't enthusiastic. young people aren't going to come out and vote, and so, for the young people who aren't in this room, who aren't still on the fence, saying that they're not going to vote, what can be done to increase that voter, that voter engagement and particularly among black and brown-- black and brown communities? go ahead, professor. >> i was going to say that i'm going to get back to that civic infrastructure thing which i know is quite professorial of me to talk about that, but there's a way to do it. you can create -- you can create cohorts of voters. in other words, young people, you know, you have a -- you're going to vote and you have a couple of friends saying, i'm not going to vote. come on, let's do it together.

it will be fun, maybe we'll go have lunch and listen to music, things like that. this is the way you build. s this the way we build community during the civil rights music. we use today play chess together, listen to jazz together. it was real, it was human. so, i think what's going on here and what you're talking about, so much of what's been going on has been ai, not human, you know, and malcolm gladwell wrote an article, 2015, called the revolution will not be tweeted. right? and what he was saying is that social media's fine to make connections like find out about people, but to take the kind of risks that we're talking about now, you have to have a real-- the kind of thing that you were talking about. you have to have a real trust and you can only build that face-to-face and you have an opportunity to do that. go and find the magic number seven. find six or seven of your friends and go and vote

together and after you've done that reach out other groups of seven who have voted together start talking about what the experience was and build from there. [applause] >> we're playing hot potato with the mic. >> i just have two quick thoughts on this. the first thing, if you want young people to feel that their vote matters, to show up to the ballot box, you have to talk to them and don't talk down to them, but have a conversation with them, right? i'm seeing lots of thank yous. thank you. i'm not gen z, but i'm gen z at heart. young people are so good at having fun and finding joy in politics and work and all of that, but that does not mean that they don't take the issues seriously and one of the things that i've learned, i've done a lot of work with young gun

violence organizers, one thing he have' learned, they have nuanced about policy. and they can sit in rooms and talk about policy. if you want young people to show up at the ballot box you have to have conversations about policy. talk to young people about student loan debt, talk to young people about the cost of rent and talk to young people about foreign policy because they care and they're passionate about what's happening around the world. that's number one. if you want young people to show up, you have to talk to them and have real complex conversations with them. and the second, i think, it goes back to your education question, and i think we've done a real disservice to generations of young people by not helping them understand how powerful they are on every level of government. it breaks my heart when i hear people talking about voting for someone in a presidential election cycle, but they don't know who sits on their city council. they don't know who their state representative is, they don't

know what their state legislature is part-time instead of full-time. and these are basic things that people should be equipped with from a very early age so that they know, if you really care about, you know, the taxes you're paying or the cost of things in your neighborhood, the person who sits on the city or county commission probably has more to do with that than the president ever will and you have so much to be held accountable and i'd love to look into lean into every level of government. [applause] >> hold on, hold on one second, mr. king, because i want to do something. i want to do something. because this is the most engaged group of young people. i mean, come on. this is like a focus group right here. no, no, no, no. no, no, no, because we'll be here all afternoon. all right. so i see you're clapping,

you're snapping. you're doing everything. and basically you want brandon to run for office. >> yes! (applause) >> you've all been nodding and snapping. what's the one thing that's resonated from what you've heard up here today, particularly from brandon. and does-- i'm going to come over here. >> i'm going to hold onto the mic. yeah, your name, your year, where you're from. >> hi, my name is zion young and i go for a school-- i'm in grade 11, one thing that you said that caught my attention was our educational system and how a lot of older people don't see our eyes as young adults when it comes down to politics. they think that oh, because we're young, you don't understand, you don't know or comprehend it fully or develop it as well as they can, but we can and it's so important that our voices are heard because we

are the next generation to come into politics and into policies. so when he says the educational system and government is all -- [applause] >> two more people, i know this is unorthodox and i'm sorry for social media trying to keep the eyes up there, but-- >> name, where are you from? age, grade. >> i'm from washington d.c., i go to a charter school and i'm a 12th grader. one thing that he said that got to me was how you have to talk to us because don't talk down to us, because we are -- [applause] >> we're actually very smart kids, and you have to frame things differently to us because we-- there's some kids that are really, really smart, but people don't know how to speak to them and they can't convey the ideas, and when the older generation, you don't know what you're talking about or you're wrong and beat us down so we can't get our point out.

that stuck out to me because that's the truth. [applause] >> last one. >> name, grade, where are you from. >> hello, my name is dominic, i'm from d.c. and i'm a 9th grader at charter school for journalism and media arts. what resonated with me when you were talking about influencing the youth and how you've got to talk to us, because like i feel like you're never too old to learn anything because life is full of learning and making mistakes, so-- >> i'm going to tell you as a 57-year-old, you are correct. [laughter]. >> so, my apologies, mr. king, but i could not let that opportunity go by because they really, really engage and the 9th grader, you're not eligible to vote yet. you've got one more cycle. but go ahead, mr. king. >> i just have one comment for consideration. in our nation when one goes to

college and if you're in the military, the rotc, you graduate as a lieutenant, which is a commanding officer in the military, which means that you have 15 to 25 troops that you tell what to do. so if you can be at 21 graduating the average age, maybe from college, a commanding officer, why then can't you offer yourself to run for school board, to run for state legislative office, to run for, you know, mayors in some cases. most of those jobs are part-time and the way you get young people engaged is you have young people lead. so, it is important to think about, i have these ideas, i don't like the total curriculum, i want to change, hypothetically some of the things that we're taught in school, but if you're on the board of education, you make those decisions. and you make those decisions

for others, and so the more we have young people in the process, in that way, as from the elected side because you can-- you're doing it all the time. so, don't not consider offering yourselves for public office positions. [applause]. >> so we have just about 10 minutes left. i'm going to combine two things. one, i mean, we've sort of touched on expanding access to the ballot box and voter education, but i wonder if there's anything in that topic area that we haven't touched on that we should before we go do closing remarks? go ahead, fatima? >> well, so everything you all said was right not just for young people who may be voting for the first time, but i think that any voter, we can't be at doors or on phones or in community meetings and talking down to people and i actually

think we also have to level with folks about a few things and one of those things is that sometimes change takes a long time, and that's hard to hear. that is hard to hear that it's not just one election i'm going to ask you to vote in, i'm going to actually ask you to keep voting each time and especially now, you know, i really think we're in a giant contention for who we're going to be in the future right now and that's why it feels so tough. so, i -- that levelling with people without talking down, the real talk, because people can handle it, is a thing that's been on my mind and i guess a related thing that's been on my mind is talking about what people care about, right? when someone says student loans, i saw all of you all like, hands up, you were thinking about it. we need to be talking about

things that are on your mind, not just what i'm also thinking about, so, thank you for at that reminder today. >> what i was just saying, talk to people and the other half of that is listen to people. and the 9th grader here, i say 9th grade. it's like, yeah, i mean, the thing is that we have no idea how much brilliance and capability there is, just waiting to come to fruition, if we would just step out of the way. we have to understand, you know, none of this wait your turn business. we don't have time for that. any of you young people from your age to mine, who has something to offer, come on, come to the table and let's do this. we've got to do this together. african proverb, you probably heard. you want to go fast, go alone. you want to go far, go together. [applause] >> brandon, do you have

anything to add on this access to the ballot box, voter education that we haven't already touched on. >> yeah, i guess i would underscore what you were saying, which is this idea i talked about the disservice we do to generations of people when we don't teach them how powerful they are at every level of government. i also think we do a disservice when we treat democracy like a one-day holiday and not a 365, 24/7 group activity that requires us all the time deeply engaged with each other. democracy is not one election every few years, democracy is every day and democracy is also not a destination, an election, is not a destination, right, these things are check points on a journey that we're on together and i think we have to be honest with people about that, right? it's like the candidates that you're looking at are not perfect, they're human beings,

but they are the vehicle that you are choosing to help move things in the direction that we're all trying to get to. and it's going to require you to, yes, show up on election day, but then show up on november 6th and told them accountable and november 7th and november 8th and keep showing up every single day, so i hope that as we have conversations about what kind ever country we want to be, first we can break out of this isolation problem that we're in, we can learn to communicate with each other, we can look at each other in the face, put down the phones, get out from behind the screens and have real dialogs with one another and i also hope we can build a muscle around democracy that helps us understand it's our obligation to be engaged in it every single day, 24 hours a day, that it's about the conversations we're having at a thanksgiving table, not just the piece of paper we put in a box in november. >> (applause).

[laughter] >> this is my constituency here. >> yes, it is. you're speaking to them. [applause] >> i was going to add something to that and it will come back to me, you know. i had a part-time-- no, i don't have that. let me take that back, but let me say this because one of the things that president obama said to our nation was if i'm able to win, i need your help governing. most of us just chill. okay, you got it. we are going to let him handle it. no, you have to create the climate and the condition so that the nation can respond because experts are telling the president one thing, whoever the president may be, but the people also need to engage and stay engaged because if there's no -- no information, no

engagement by the community, then you know, the president, whatever the experts tell them, him or her to do, that's what they're going to do. we're living in a world, it's a frightening situation with potential of war right on our -- right now on our precipice. now, that's always been a threat, but it feels like it's greater now than ever before and as i said, i have to go back to what dad said. human kind must learn to balance or we will face nonexistence. the things that we see happening in our country that are negative are not sustainable. it doesn't mean we don't need to have difference, that's fine, or a different way to do things. there are ways for us to accomplish most of the objectives that are responsible. i think that can be done, but i

also think that, you know, we've got to find a way to stay, if you will, on the battlefield. i don't know if i like that analogy, but i think it's an analogy that we can understand. it's just to engage, that doesn't mean 24/7, but for those really interested it might mean 24/7 for those of us moderately interested, it means staying engaged and that's why every election cycle is important not just one because things are determined down the road. for example, you know, i've been involved in-- from over a year how, a campaign to get the supreme court expanded because in my lifetime the supreme court, we've gone to the supreme court many times to expand rights and privileges and back in 2013 the

supreme court eviscerated the voting rights act and you know, one of the things that we often say is, if voting rights people wanted you to do, why are they fighting so hard to keep you from voting? thank you about that. there are rules that are signed in many states, my own state of georgia, you can't even give somebody water in line who is waiting to vote, a senior, that's illegal. i mean, you get a ticket, you get a misdemeanor, but for voting, really? bottom line, and i'm going to go out here and say, we haven't gotten there yet, but we're working on technology. now this phone that we all have, we pay bills with it, we order anything we want on it, why can't we also vote on our phones? that's a real possibility. [applause] >> and that technology, mobile technology, we have a lot of work to do to get to that point

where it's totally secure, but you know, i was telling somebody the other day, you know, i pay thousands of bills, not one time are they coming to say, well, we didn't get your money this time. it always makes it. so, if i can pay my bill, which i think is an important thing, on a phone, then we should be able to vote. we should be able to register, we should have same day registration, it should be very easily done, and it can be done. there are those who want to push back, but we need to be pushing forward and the only way we push forward is we all or many of us engage and say, look, we want to go forward with these things. >> in an effort to keep us on time, and going to have to let that be each one of you has given a great final thought, but to put some historical context on what mr. king was just talking about, president obama saying to everyone help me govern, the fantastic story about mr. king's father, dr.

king, correct me if this story is wrong, coming back from oslo, having been awarded the nobel peace prize, he and andrew young stopped off here in washington to have a meeting with president johnson. they had just gotten the 1964 civil rights act passed and they were pushing for voting rights act and the meeting with the president, with president johnson, they pleaded with the president, bring the voting rights act up for a vote and he said to them, i gave it all for civil rights act, can't do it, can't do it. i don't have the power. meeting ends. dr. king and mr. young sit and they talk about the meeting they just had and dr. king, they were talking about how the president said, he doesn't have the power, he doesn't have the power and dr. king said to andrew young, well, let's get him some power. and that conversation led to the march across the edmund pettus bridge, john lewis, not

ralph abernathy, and hosea williams, which you all hopefully know was bloody sunday. less than three months later, the 1965 voting rights act was passed and signed into law by president johnson. so, when mr. king talks about helping a president govern, giving a president the power to do what you want, that's a concrete story that you can now run with and tell all your friends. martin luther king iii, professor harold mcdougall, brandon wolf, fatima graves, thank you very much for this conversation. [applause] >> welcome back, everyone, after that long exhaustive break. [laughter] >> that while my fellow

panelists are taking their seats, i want to once again thank panel one for the important discussion and particularly for their diagnosis of the challenges. they were extraordinary. [applause]. >> iment and also, what i like about that panel they have very real prescriptions and very real takeaways each of us can do to heal and go forward in our democracy. now, i'm very much looking forward to this next panel on political violence, hate trends and path to community. this is dear to my heart. and i worked with my mentor, the late reverend vivian, hate crimes, and communities organized against hate violence. for those of you who don't know who reverend vivian is, i implore you if you have a

moment to look him up particularly when he gave an impromptu speech on the steps of selma courthouse as he was registering people to vote. and for those with the hate groups the things i researched in the late 90's have become sound bites, campaign platforms and even laws in 2024. make no mistake, oppression is being legislated. rights that have been fought for and died for are being eroded. i talk a lot about my 16-year-old daughter and i think about her today as i'm looking out at some of the students here, she's the only grandchild of martin luther king, jr. and coretta scott king, she's a junior in high school and at 16 years old, she, just like you, have fewer rights than the day that she was born.

today we face a tide of hate that is threatening our democracy. hate is being legislated around this nation. the history taught in schools is being rewritten. books are being banned and our leaders are using their words to sow division, fear and hatred. the results are clear an uptick in anti-semitism, islamophobia, white supremacy, homophoba, sexism, racism, and bigotry, all leading to hate crimes and political violence. words have power. words have the power to subjugate and disenfranchise. words also have power to elevate ideas, raise consciousness and to make progress. i look forward to the latter in

this discussion. an editor at axios, thank you for moderating this important discussion. now i turn it over to you. >> thank you. [applause] >> thank you all for joining us today. as we were just hearing about this important discussion that we're going to have, we all know that we're seeing urgent and alarming trends of political violence, hate crimes and divisive rhetoric and that includes hate crimes across the board whether we're talking about black, asian-american, anti-semitic, muslim american and i did not think i would be standing up at this point in a presidential campaign and say we would see two assassinations attempts against a presidential candidate and of course, against the back drop off the january 7th attack on the u.s. capitol. ...

>> were shot provinces president for color for change, of change. harry dunn is a former u.s. capitol police officer and founder of democracy defenders. of course arndrea waters king president of the drum major institute. and resident executive director of the lawyers' committee for civil rights under the law. [applause] >> as we talked for all this i wanted to start with an open question to all of you. it's really just how are you doing? how are you feeling or thinking about this moment in political

violence, hateful rhetoric and our democracy? i know that the big question but i thought we should start with that, given all the topics we're going to cover this hour. can i start with you? >> i see you senses in washington, d.c. most of the father of a five week old daughter. >> congratulations. [applause] >> thank you. so everything at the moment seen that the lens of that relationship, that new way of understanding, then the way medicine world around me, i am hopeful of course that's what children do. they give us that hope for a better future but also fearful and ashamed, too, because we are on the cusp of another election in the united states and my child is american. my wife is american and my child

is america. were on the cusp of fearing and predicting political violence that harry saw so sinfully four years ago. we are also seeing this rise around the world to wear at a moment in a year of elections where over 2 billion people around the world took part in democratic elections this year from india united kingdom to the united states. in all those countries autocracy is knocking at the door of democracy and threaten to upend the thing that is kept our communities, people of color, lgbtq+ people safe for decades. i am fearful for that reason. but there is hope not just in the eyes of my five-year-old daughter. i'm i'm not quite sure for iser able to see me yet but i can see her. there's also hope on this stage alongside me and in this room. [applause]

>> first of all thank you. it's great to be with you all. when i think about this moment of political violence i think it's incredibly important we remember there were no good old days. this is an event that is hosted by the king family so there was no good old days in terms of what it means to actually fight for a better tomorrow and the forces that are constantly going to be standing in the way. i lead a next-generation, color change found in aftermath of a flood which was hurricane katrina. in the gulf coast was a flood that was caused by bad decision-makers and turned to life altering disaster by bad decision-makers. like books were literally on the roots making for the government to do something and left to die. that's also violence. and in the moments like hurricane katrina and so many of

the moment it illustrates things that we already knew. geographic segregation, generational poverty, the choices made time and time again, the impacts on all sorts of systems that harm and hurt us but at the heart of it no one was nervous about disappointing black people. government, , corporations, nee. when institutions are not nervous, doesn't matter what research report you have that illustrates all the facts, doesn't matter what you do in the courts if you don't have power to implement it. it doesn't matter. you need people power in there to change. you need the ability to hold those in power accountable and force people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do, to be able to change the rules. when i think about this moment we are in, of heightened political violence, i am constantly thinking about what can we do to change the world? what can we do to change the incentive structure that allow

for political fathers to be profitable in this country? that's one of the things i hope we talk about. in moments of pain, in moments of challenge, in moments where we can feel like all of the forces are in on us, i consult you go back to what can we do? what type of strategic action we can take. how do we make sense of the mold to bring people together to fight for for a better tomo? and to recognize that every single change that is, in this country has come with us having to overcome forces that wanted us to be silent, wanted to push us down, and wanted us to be afraid of what we could achieve together. while i absolutely recognize this moment i also recognize the possibility of people in this room and people around the country making something possible that we didn't believe was possible. [applause] >> good afternoon, y'all. my name is harry dent conformer

united states capitol police officer. i was at the capital on january 6th -- thank you. the question, how are we doing? i'm a large man of statue, right? people see me and they want to give me a hug. i can use offer comforting words to them, make them feel safe to other 13 your daughter. i like being that teddy bear come right? i like being that person. i left the capitol police after 15+ years to run for congress. like you said earlier i like change. what can we do to make a difference? all right, i do every thing i could to as a police officer. what's my next step? what's next? very solutions oriented. when i was ready for congress i had a lot of people i would talk to on the phone, in person and they with a harry, i am scared. i'm worried about our country.

i pride myself in being able to issue comforting words, a look, something that could say hey it's going to be okay. and they couldn't do that because i'm not going to lie to people. i don't know if it's going to be okay. i don't like to be this year monger or what was me, well is we are but i'm worried. i'm nervous about this upcoming election -- woe is me. i don't say that to promote fear. i say that too great a sense of urgency so that we can all say what can we do? because the one thing i could not do is remain silent and do nothing. it was hard to speak out like i did. that was hard. what would have been harder is not saying anything, not doing something. so no matter what happens, i

love listening to music. i mean music person. i like old school, hip-hop, r&b. tupac was on my playlist at the time, and you know, you have your next song tupac rader, whatever comes on next related to it. whitney houston the greatest love of all came up after that. that was tupac. listening to tupac and whitney houston came on. you know, i listened to the lyrics and said, i decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow. if i failed, if i succeed at least i lived. no matter what they take for me, you can't take away your so that, right? i thought it was a love song, right? when i was younger. wow, this is very powerful. so it gave me the courage, the

internal fortitude to say we got to do something. what can i do? i asked the question to all, what can you do? you can do something, so. [applause] >> how am i doing? it depends on the day, and sometimes it depends on the moment. you know, one of things that is always been my guiding star sma used to monitor the organization originally was called national anti-klan network, and then turned into the center for democratic renewal because we knew that these groups threaten the very idea of a democracy. but when you're monitoring things like the ku klux klan and neo-nazis and skinheads, i had

to decide early on how to argue that in in a way that the service to our community and to the world. so i put on my office wall a quote by bell hooks that says we must never become like that which were fighting against. [applause] and that is always something that is my guiding star. and obviously we are in some very, very difficult and challenging days. but i've had the immense pleasure, honor of, see, my belief and understanding in good and in human nature is that because i married martin luther king iii. as wonderful as he is. my knowledge about with good and

right and just and the fact that we can change the world was informed by working with two people who did just that, reverend vivian and anne braden was mentioned in the letter from a birmingham jail as a white southerner in the movement for peace and justice for all of us. so i know what happens. i know how powerful we are, and i also know what happens when it looks impossible, you know, there's nothing that's impossible the very word says i'm possible. i do know what happens when average people become super people. and that's what this time calls for. so then that gives me hope. it is given the tremendous hope to be here with young people today. you all remind me so much of our daughter and she holds our feet to the fire to make sure that we

are operating in a way that's not, that's honoring young people and honoring your power. and they really believe, and i've said it before, that this generation really believe is going to be the greatest generation that this country has ever seen. [applause] you are bold. you are innovative. you are unapologetic, which sometimes makes you hard to parent. [laughing] but all of those things, all of those things are going to bear you all in this nation will pick so it's at those moments as well that gives me hope. it is being around all of the people that are here today on these panels, to know what you

all survived, and you keep going in your standing and leaving. to know how we all have stood together come with march together, you know, i know the people whose hearts are working towards truly building that path to the beloved community. it's standing in working next to mi familia vota and hector who understand that black and brown standing together, someone assess earlier, in fact, who, what died or what are y'all doing? i said we are black, they are brown, and we are building the rainbow coalition together. you know? so it's at moments like this that gives me hope, not only for humanity but for our democracy. and i'm always clear that this movement has always been a movement about coping.

it's only been a movement about hope. it's about what people saw that need to change and have the courage and the power and the vision to do so. and it also is about faith. and in particular in the black community we have always been guided by our faith, whatever that is. and we always know that when it's the darkest, we don't give up. we look to the stars. we remember all of our ancestors that it came before us and we know and understand that each one of us, no matter our faith, no matter our pastor today, somewhere someone in some way prayed for you, and take the young people i want you to understand that you are the answer to prayers of your ancestors. and those are the things that keep me going, that faith in humanity, the fate in this coalition that's that con

standing together, and the knowledge that the matter what it looks like, you know, today is gandhi 150 fifth birthday, 155. and one of the things that he said is that whenever he despairs, whenever he gets tired, which we all do, is that he looks anything about history. and he says as a way of tyranny, the way fascism has never one ever. he said it may look like it from time to time to look back and you think over history, that is never one. and always what is good, what is right, what is just that is overcome tyranny, that's overcome fascism and now it's just our turn to do our part in that long march for freedom. [applause] >> i'm full of just listening to my friends here. stevie wonder has a song that going to quote a bit out of context, ordinary pain.

what i think about the song title i think about the ordinary pain the black folks. since slavery. jim crow, and now. i think that the ordinary brown and black folks. think about darpa to a brother said, the longer, as long as we had education in this country we had racial discrimination in schools. as long as we've had elections in this country with a racial discrimination in voting. as an ordinary pain, that's the things were fighting against. we can feel weary, we can feel weary but i think the thing that, i'm feeling sometimes weary and body but in spirit not at all because what i do hold onto is not just people fighting against that what we're fighting for. our organization, lawyers'

committee for civil rights under law with talk about something wiggle the future we deserve, and all of the dreams and aspirations of this generation to design dispraise, taking the shorts, i don't know if you know what that means, taking the shorts. look it up. it's an old phrase. but you know i think about this generation. i think about all the things that of the hopes and dreams you have for my kids who are all three kids between ages of five and nine. i think what you want for them and what they want for themselves are not just wishes. they are not i see on the cake. it's the cake console. it's a future the war, the deserve -- the future they deserve. i think about reverend c. t. vivian on the steps andrew talked about who she said we are willing to be beaten for democracy. not be beaten for no reason, for democracy. for democracy.

so i get energy and life for what we're fighting for even though i have that duality with the ordinary pain that always clings and stings because a note to the extent our mission is to eradicate anti-black racism and all the other isms that generate from it, that won't happen in our lifetimes but we keep fighting. we keep fighting together and i realize we're fighting for something that's bigger than us and were fighting for is what we deserve. so that's how i feel. [applause] >> thank you. thanks all of you for answering that. i think we should delve a little bit into this ordinary pain, which, and this moment. harry, it was a few miles from here on january 6th that support of the former president took part in a mob stormed the u.s. capitol building. a lot of people are afraid that something like that could happen again. how do we prevent that?

how do we lower the heat of the rhetoric? >> we should be afraid that it could happen again because who would've thought that it would've happened in the first place? i was scared that day. i'm scared now that it could happen again. i'm no longer with the police department but one, i friends and former coworkers who still are there. and as a citizen who loved this country, it's scary and set the could happen again. how do we keep it from happening again? first of all, logistically we have an adult in the white house now. resident biden is an adult. not like on january 6th when donald trump was responsible for the national guard and stuff like that. so logistically, we have and adults. makes you feel better. >> makes me feel safer. secondly, accountability. two things that accountability does. it brings peace and subtype of justice and comfort to those

victims. secondly, it serves as a deterrent to keep people from doing it again. accountability has not been had at the highest levels of january 6th yet, to include donald trump, may be members of cars or anybody else that co-conspirator. now if we look at the supreme court with the recent immunity ruling, it's a possibility we will never see accountability, never. so when you say how can we prevent it works if donald trump, right now has gotten away with it. and he is saying i did nothing wrong. and there's been nobody, legal body pushing back against it. so what's to stop him from doing it again? nothing really. well, there is. november 5, the people have a say that once and for all we can hold them accountable at the ballot box. that's been my mission.

>> let me say one thing about that. applause for the brother, please. [applause] >> i agree wholeheartedly, though we decided a few months after the insurrection that we're going to file a lawsuit. , possibly have felt before. we do a lot of work on police accountability in terms of self-determination for black communities to determine safety on her own terms. we begin safety not just against state violence but against white supremacist violence as well. and so we decide we would represent some of your fellow capitol police officers, most of them are black men like harry who run the front lines that day. what we've alleged though is a regular oh conspiracy, a conspiracy to violate civil rights. we're pushing for the accountability. there's at least three legs of this tool of accountability. there's the criminal liability

which is very elusive. although i wasn't a number of the people we sued and we referred to today have been prosecuted and convicted,, sentenced. many of them fled. there's the political accountability which is about november 5, but other elections along the way. but there's also the civil liability and that's what we are so trying strategically delegitimize the ideologies that led to those actions but also frankly destabilizing organizations. trump wasn't the only defendant. also oath keepers, proud boys and 24 of their co-conspirators. so one faucet doesn't do all the work but it's the aligned effort that makes a difference. what some people thought was an odd fellowship between us and police officers who are human beings and who defended life, liberty, property and democracy itself on that day is very

important. >> imran can help us understand a little bit more about what this looks like online when we think about digital hate, thinking about how when we think about the community the later january 6th and what that looks like now also? >> yeah. i mean, i think, forgive me because i don't actually come from the civil rights movement itself. i'm a student of the sociology and the nature of how the lies that underpin hate, and the words of hate spread in digital spaces online particularly on social media. the ways in which bad actors are able to weaponized the spaces, the ways in which ad platforms ultimately amplify and normalize the lies that underpin hate, and lies and hate are inextricably interlinked. all the way from the again come

take at the syllogism, the notion blood libel, the protocols of the elders of zion. we should underpin hitler's ideology and is hateful, his murders hatefulness. or even in the 21st century the great replacement theory. the great replacement ferry was used to justify the massacre of muslims in christchurch, new zealand, and jews of the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh -- >> can you just live and understands can explain what it is. >> was the great replacement theory is a theory that the reason, it's really about it now because you're being -- your hearing is being talked about in political rhetoric from mainstream politicians. blacks, minorities are being bussed into this country a deliberate plot to destroy the white race. and there's lots of different variants of the. one variant of it set me off on this journey. it was the summer of 2016 when a rumor conspiracy there was being spread online but we thought

it's online, is that the big issue. who cares about online stuff? fsoc the real world. this theory was that the eu, the european union was trying to import muslims into the uk to rape 14-year-old white girls and destroy the white race work that conspiracy theory affected the referendum in the uk. it led to an earthquake in european politics, the brexit referendum. but it also directly led to the assassination, the stabbing, shooting and beating to death of my colleagues joe cox was a 41-year-old mother of two who was savagely beaten, shot and stabbed to death on the cobbled streets of consistency very close to group and north england. when that moment happened and her attacker was screaming britain first, , death to trade,

two things about what he was screened at the time, death to treat it was a slogan used for the grape of visitor, the idea that people are traitors because they are destroying the white race, destroying the nature, the soul of our country by importing people that look like us. and he's also saying britain first. written first was a name of the first political movement in the uk. the reason why the cepi off on the path to what i do now was that to use or someone had told me that and i said, who gives a damn? they've got 1 million clicks. we have half a million members, and how wrong was i? because what i haven't seen and was so many others have not seen was that in the modern world the main place where we share information, when we establish and maintain our relationships, where we establish and socialize

our norms of attitude and behavior, what is called or social mores, when we negotiate our values and where we negotiate what we call the truth have shifted to social media. and they operated with different rules, different mathematics, different rules of physics in the real world. in the real world in any space every walk-in, if people scream the inward consequences happen. social media you get amplified. so it was normalize income making more visible, making feel like that's the expense the people should expect and that was was in normal way to behave. that again led to the dynamics underpin what was happening on january 6, 2020, when people are seeing the normalization of extremist rhetoric, of ideas that were once unthinkable in civilized society, the notion that, the very, the most sacred

aspect of democracy itself which is that we give up voluntarily political violence in order to put the ballot box first. the ballot box determines our collective future as condition. that idea was being challenged. it's why january the sixth was so dangerous because it attacked the most fundamental value that underpins our democracy. we were seeing those, the lies that just about that hatred, that justified that by listing spread at light speed to millions of people, for zero cost, and provided by algorithms, squashing the voices of those of us with tolerance and love in our hard and the city felt like everyone was hateful and violent and suddenly we saw that violence exploded in her streets just like where i lived near the capital. >> let me also bring it home to

what we are expensing as well here in the u.s. you talk about some of these far right groups. i'm honored to hate a group -- let me go back. in 1979, 45 years ago next month in november, there was an anti-klan demonstration in greensboro, north carolina. and so as the protesters were getting ready to organize, beginning of the margin can bring to start their march, the ku klux klan and neo-nazis pulled up in a pickup truck in front of, in broad daylight in front of the two cameras and the news media, and killed five of the demonstrators. and what made that, and is called the greensboro massacre. and what made that particular

incident outside obvious he of the lives that were lost in the day, but what made it historical in this country is that was the first time the ku klux klan and these neo-nazis formed an alliance and worked together. today, , we see that, and so it kept evolving kept evolving and now it's the alt alt-right. it's the same group. so the same information that we were monitoring in the '90s, when we are monitoring the far right and extreme groups, their viewpoints, their organizing now has become, commission the proud boys which is another variation in 2024. and now a lot of those ideas that they had, they actually now have become legislation. that's what's so dangerous about this moment that we are in. a lot of the things when we were researching them, a lot of the things that seemed so extreme 20

years ago, they now have made those, you can hear the same things. you can go to the internet and hear it, which is spread like wildfire. but you can click on any "newsnight," the night of the news and those things are now becoming soundbites. those things are the legislation that are being attacked. when you talk about your rights that have been eroded those are the things that were talking about an organizing in the late '90s. so we are at a very real point. it's not just soundbites the sound cute. we are at a point where oppression is now being legislated. and they can be connected to the extreme far right, which can be connected to their organizing in the u.s., particularly since 1979. so that's where we are as a country. >> let's talk a little bit about that legislating hate, in particular i want to ask a

little bit about the slew of bills that have been passed in states around the country that target the lgbtq community. damon, can ask about how these bills come some which have become law, intensify polarization, divide our country further? >> well, that's the whole purpose. i hate to even use the phrase culture war because it's a word that feels academic and atmospheric when it's really about the lived experience, how it plans on folks. but these are laws and we often see at the lgbtq+ bills, bathroom bills as they call it. also in schools we are seeing a chilling of curriculum. we are litigating cases and to state right now, oklahoma and arkansas, and arkansas one of our clients, students and teachers at central high school

and they're wondering can we teach and learn about the little rock nine and david dukes and civil rights history? and oh, they don't know if they can teach and learn about the tulsa race massacre, which still did open up a new investigation about yesterday, the department of justice. or the trail of tears, what happened to our native people, right? we have partnered in some of those cases with the aclu, which ironically is defending the clans right to protest and march. our stand is we cannot allow the divisive bills to divide us, and we have claims of the 14th amendment, equal protection clause which most people think about in terms of race but also the first amendment, the freedom to learn, the freedom to teach. because the first amendment cast work for us, too. it can't work just for some

people. we are fighting back and also trying our best to fight forward. but these laws have such a chilling effect. one of our clients is actually a white student and arkansas kiss, a multiracial group of clients, and she did a film short forrester she said it's not just like history, it's my history,, too. they don't want us to learn. you can say the same thing across gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, race. they are trying to divide us as much as possible. here's the thing. this generation, which i guess generation out for people calling come right? if you're in high school or early college years, knows better. knows better, has a proud sense of self but also activity of interdependence. see, what i think these folks are afraid of is what was taught in the '60s at the height of

the american civil rights movement of that time, and what we saw just recently as in 2020 protests. around the corner from office which is round the corner of black america lives class here in d.c. a multiracial intergenerational and interfaith group of people convening, connecting. people across sexual orientation. all demanding racial justice and equity. that's what the fighting against. that's why they're so scared of us in that way. you asked about the impact. the impact is profound but i see it emboldening people. my daughter who i don't believe has developed her own sense of full identity, bush has a sense of solidarity because she's been in the rainbow club after elementary school. my role is to fight to make sure there can be a rainbow club so she can make our choice to at least stand in solidarity as her

own identity forms. i think her young people fighting back and know how to do this. >> were shot, i want to bring you and as we talk about moving towards talking solutions and we think about black and brown coalition -- were shot. what are seeing now? what this is for me to know about how people are working together and the power of the? >> yeah. first of all, i really appreciate listening to sort of where were asked, right, in the problem. try to think about what can we do. how do we think about the road ahead in terms of disrupting, dismantling, changing incentive structure that makes this possible. a couple of things are really important to me. first of all there's a lot of presence, visibility and awareness as the issue exist. but we can't mistake presence for power. what i mean by that is presence

is visibility, awareness, retweet, shout out from the stage. it's the near times doing a story on it and giving us all the data behind it. sometimes we think presence means peoples awareness is enough and know something is going to happen. but that's not enough. when we missed the presence of how we can think black president would post racist by black celebrity announcing they have a new album coming out and the internet stopping means that america loves black people as much as america looks black culture. and america can love and celebrate and monetize black culture and hate black people at the same time. those two things do not have to actually be in conflict. the question really is what do we do? want to give a couple of examples of work i think is really important but all interest on part. sometimes that the written will come sometimes it's an unwritten rule. shortly after donald trump was elected in 2016, we saw a new

price of white national script all around the country. we saw a group starting to march and engage in new ways. i in some new ways with michael slager what do we do about this? how do we deal with this? you are not going to demand things in the white nationalist groups at some point, law enforcement and those places is showing up as the groups, but those unable to disrupt and dismantle them. there are questions of how do these groups of infrastructure and how did he operate. we spent some time and we got a sense of where do these organizations money come from? how are the resource? was enabling them? who supporting them? we started to look at, , you can go under websites and by par familiar, so most hateful things possible. you could give money to paypal to pay for busing certificates. we started reaching out to the

credit card companies and started reaching out to the banks, and the credit card comes would say no, this nothing we can really do about this. the banks would take you couldn't do it we get the point where i washington wn post reported safe we know you're creeping around this issue of the banks and credit card companies and the funding of white nationalist groups. you know there's nothing they can really do next i go okay. so we built this platform called no blood money and we built this platform where we started dating both the white nationalist groups that had been getting funding and paypal, american express and all these companies. we spent some time still come back and forth with these companies and then charlottesville happened. and over the weekend at charlottesville we took what was private discussion and we turned on the public action. because in that moment where the issue was a deeply present we could have started yelling about

the thing apart once again his ability to change the rule. there are written rules and their unwritten rules. and by that tuesday the credit card companies and paypal were giving us a list of white nationalist groups that suddenly there were no longer going to process money for. no law had changed, the power and instead change, , that millions were now and motion raising the voice of wonder why this copies were a lot of money to go to these groups, why these companies were funded. that required infrastructure. the required organizing. it required strategy. it required focus and it required timing. all those things are incredibly important if we want to take on the forces that give the powerful, deeply ingrained and deeply profitable. when i talk about this work, over the course of the coming weeks we saw then sending us more and more. we started running you targeted ads over those companies, meaning if you showed up and you work at mastercard and to turn

on your phones to google or facebook you might get an ad asking you to speak at your ceo and ask them why they were allowing fees to be processed white nationalist groups or i remember meeting with the folks at mastercard or visa is doing it, too. i do understand why you are not running at that visa, too. no, we are. i said all that to say that that is one example. other examples is the incentive structure of big tech. what is amplified come what money can be made, how this information travels. right now you too is monetizing, has ads running up against anti-haitian hate. right now content that is attacking the haitian community will have ads for major funders, major corporations right up against it. those of type of things we have to disrupt, that we have to

stop, we have to make it unprofitable. i want to end by pricing will always lose in the back rooms of it in the people lined up at the front door. this is not something but how much information we have or awareness. we need all of those but we need people in motion to take on the folks in power, to take on the decision-makers in power and to cut off their money. because once were able to truly make racism, to make injustice, to make hate no longer profitable, we were actually see this sort of ways in which it operates and the ways in which it travels completely changed. by default it is a deeply profitable there will be all sorts of enablers and all sorts of people and all sorts of institutions looking to uphold a come working to profit from it and working to continue to make it a reality. [applause] >> thank you for sharing that. particularly, i think this is,

elon musk souter center for countering digital hate. this room may not know about this lawsuit but i wonder if you can tell us about that and the outcome and how that fits into what he was just talk about. >> let me pick up on what he said about the incentive structure. here's one of the things that is fundamentally different to hate we seen in the past. it's not just politically profitable to be hateful. it is now economically profitable for the producers and distributors of hate and allies that underpin hate to continue to do that. one of the things we studied, as a sinema sociologist, a scientist by training, a data site is so we look to the data on how much money and individual hate act that spreads hate online that's given a promotion makes each of these platforms. so one medium-size hate actor can generate between ten and $21 of revenue a year for year for the platform.

that's shared to most platforms like youtube, 55 -45 in favor of the producer. someone is making bank at a just screaming nonsense and hate and lies about black people, about brown people, about muslims, about jews, about whoever else. we looked at that and we thought well, you know, i have try to runs a much bigger position for me. my organization is about, makes less than ten minutes of the year. were 40 people globally. how can we make a difference? we focus on two things. we focus on the legislation in countries where countries are willing to legislate and say that increase the amount of hate in our society we will impose costs on you. so we'll make it less profitable by introducing costs to the spreading of hate. the uk and eu i was the first witness to give evidence in uk for the online safety act. that became law october 2023. we worked with european union on the digital services act in

brussels, and incredibly boring place but very, very helpful to us in generating new costs for. and in the u.s. there are organizations which are backing up lawsuits ready to bring them against these platforms for that impinge on our collective civil rights but they are blocked at the moment us on the code section 233 communication decency act 1996. god willing in in the next five years our next five-year plan, where five years old two weeks ago, next i guess we will go to war with a piece of legislation which has been used to justify so many arms, everything from the provocation of hate and allies that the definitive account of the mix young girls feel crap about the bodies and make themselves want to hurt themselves. right? so that stops there. the second thing is when i had to be advertising because the advertisers were 90% of the residents of these platforms. i'm not a writer guy.

i'm not agree the speaker as others on spelling but i know economics and economics of these platforms, the decision-making of these executives, they are thinking how do we maintain the revenues come in from appetizers even the were doing the wrong thing? what we do is we do research that exposes those ads appearing of those youtube videos. when we did that with elon musk we did a small study that showed when he took over the platform, the following week after he took over the lazy 202% increase in the use of the n-word on his platform than just the week after he took over. there's a 70 plus percent increase in anti-semitic hatred and at the of to speak you plus hatred and anti-muslim hatred. that research went on the front page of the "new york times." advertiser flooded out. the cost them $100 million in annual in annual revenue. he then sued us for that saying how dare you do that research?

not for defamation, not saying we were wrong but for the actor doing the research itself. so when you hold up in a speech how much did the lawsuit costs. >> was it cost us $1 million to defend. what you know what? we won it. so i have a ruling -- [applause] i have a ruling that is lawful to hold up a mirror to hatred and say are you ashamed of yourself and did one who does business with them? we won that and we protected our own first amendment right never forget that when does people talk about how to platforms are about freedom of speech, they meet a certain kind of speech. and demean the kind of speech that restricts our freedom of speech, our ability to walk out on the street and walk out on the digital highways that comprise how we communicate in the modern world without facing a tort of hatred in response. balancing those rights is a challenge of the next few years i knew we will collect of it i think we battle.

[applause] >> wow. this is enlightening to me but it want to bring you back to hatred and racism is profitable. why? because there's an audience for it. this is what we need to understand. i appreciate all these losses, all these of civil and it's super important, right? but because he won that case that's not the end of it. just because when kamala harris wins in november, that's of the end of the maga movement. they still exist pick you know what? that calls for action. after this election he catches care about this country work about rhetoric, care about when it's a sexy topic, right? elections take place,, presidential elections take place before your. >> house of representatives, senate race takes place over to you. your local mrs. pauly.

constantly you have to keep all gas, no breaks -- your local municipality. you had to stay on it because that audience as always, when donald trump is a longer there, who's next? with elon musk, if i was going to be there. hatred has been in this country, in this world since it existed, since it existed. wonder the things i savona testified before congress when we talked about when i talk about january 6th, get upset, right? i get -- because on january 6th when the building was finally cleared and set i sat there with some of my coworkers and i just tried in the middle of the rotunda, built by black people, built by slaves. and i had the honor to protect it, to protect their work that it was a moment for me. i said to my coworker, is this america? the answer is yes, because what

is more american than beating the crap out of somebody and try to take something from the because you don't like it works that's what america was dead on. but it's not okay though. it's not okay. now instead of doing it through violence, which still happens, but a lot less than it did back in the '60s, '70s, it still happens now but now they're doing it like you said through legislation, through laws. as they are evolving we need to continue to evolve our fight also. [applause] >> we just have a few minutes left. i wanted to bring you in an ask about how they continue to build this path towards the commended weaver acceptable what else have we talked about that you wanted to mention? >> first and foremost, one of the things that we talk a lot about in the drum major

institute is no one can quote any other part or recite from the i have a dream speech. they can recite the part about my four little children. and certainly martin luther king, jr. met his little 4chan of jalandhar, martin, dexter and bernice, but in the very real sense he also meant each and every one of us. we are all errors to the king legacy. -- errors. we are ambassadors and builders of the beloved community. everything that you are here today is ways in which we see the path forward. it is building from all of the people that you all are fighting for, for everyone that came before you, that thought for you. we are saying thank you. and also for everybody to

understand that we all have a particular and unique role and a part in building that community. one of the quickest ways is to find your power and your passion, to always do and instead, they miss it or if one of things we'll say is you come from a place of power to be something rather than against. we've heard a lot today what the groups that are organizing against. we have to know what we are for. we are for peace, for justice, for equity, for building out that beloved community. one of the reasons hey crimes are so significant is because they are not about attacking the individual, that their attacking. really is trying to send a signal to the entire community that you don't belong here. that's why when they are hate crimes that happen normally are there should be extra, there's an additional punishment in some states that we fought for, because we understand your

targeting an entire community. one of the things we have to understand is legislative. we have to continue to push for laws that this is all up, that don't limit us in this country. we now have to undo laws that have been passed that are eroding democracy. but we also have to continue to stand up at anytime and organize when you see these things happening. dr. king talked about i can't make a man let me but i can't legislate his heart but i can stop him from listening. we need a combination of both as we move forward to truly address this issue but it all begins in knowing exactly the history of these groups come to understand the ties that they have. when you see fascism, we used to monitor. that was the handbook of white supremacy and neo-nazis all over.

now his daughter, that party is -- being the political party of france. when you to know and understand that, and acknowledge how hate has spread, we definitely have her work cut out for us but it e what everyone is in today whether you are here or tuning in is that there are also very real and tangible solutions that people are getting involved. people are standing up, and this rising tide of hate we are saying, hate crimes are at all-time high but the rising tide of hate we are saying that we can see that erosion that stopping each and every one of us. [applause] >> i do want to once again thank arndrea and martin and hector for the thought leadership in bringing together this panel and all the panels and discussion for the day. because i think what you're embodying in your work together is a a political treasure, isa

human project at seeing our own humanity and someone else is a vacancy there is in hours. it's the mutuality of human existence. we are strictly approaching a time when there will not be a majority race in this country. i want to get rid of the word even now minority as a concept because at most we have plurality, , not a majority come right? there was to be the fact of segregation. i'm certain of that in the next couple generation but within a couple of generations we will not have a majority race. the way we work together, not that british parliament is perfect but you guys work together, a functioning government, a functioning administration as they say, right? so were going to to do that in this country. no one group can do that alone. so the ties that bind us is the only way forward. because trust them with their

people not just here, people around the world who desperately want to see that project took that human project fail. and substitute with their own version of dystopian reality. that is based upon one person's religion or one person's race, or the hatred of another person religion or hatred of another persons race. we can be better than that. this country has only showed it in fits and starts, through flashes of brilliance the sometimes get distinguished before they reach the brightest light. -- extinguished that -- wee that on our watch. it's the future rebuild or connection to the past but understanding our reality has to be the strongest link in that chain. if we keep doing that, the people will do what we need to do. [applause] >> we have to wrap up. we've talked about so many things this hour. a few things that stuck my head

i just wanted to remind everybody of because we've talked about so many important things this hour. but we talked about harry, you talk about accountability which is so important. imran you talk about not mistaking presents for power. at a think there's another thing you said that was important that power is ability to change the world. i want to thank all of you for being here with us, damon, arndrea, harry, imran, thank you. [applause] >> okay. we are starting our last panel. and for those of you all who hung in with us all day, we are so grateful. if you stay here. so welcome back. the title, our civil rights

relevant in 2024? it may be a little bit jarring to do that title. we meant it to be. the issues raised in a shocking decisions of this supreme court has shaken many to their core, turning back laws that we sought long settled for women and minorities. i could never have imagined a generation and a half ago that these victories would be erased. it is alarming. as coretta scott king would say, freedom is never really one. that is the job of each generation. we must continue to be the flames of peace, justice, and equity. this panel will discuss diversity on college campuses, the future of dei programs, tackling the challenge of raising lack in brown voices, the role of education, and the

important role of young people in making sure that civil rights are relevant in 2024 and beyond. thank thank you, rafael frol for moderating this important discussion. >> thank you for having me. and having this distinguished panel. i thought the title was more provocative than anything. it's not a a question anybody wants to be asking in the first place, but in this age of dynamics of rights, i'm calling them dynamic and benevolent the panel use proper adjectives. i'm trying to be subtle here. but let me introduce the panel first. we have and to thompson, a professor at the department of political science at the university of pennsylvania. we have -- secretary-treasurer of the national education association. caroline dewitt, president and executive director of rock the vote. ..

in this age of civil rights over the past five years they've been dynamic and our lifetime. how have judicial changed our civil rights over the past five years? >> important question and our interpretation long-standing deeply standing question throughout american politics. we are basically finding

essentially forthcoming jobs and a fermenting action in the ruling back of protections and bodily autonomy and this concern within institutions in general working for a more equitable american society. it is the way in which not only the courts interpret but the courts of general they are perceived as contingent winning they are resting not upon in

inalienable way but their view is based upon advantages for one political party or disadvantage on the opposite concern right now and a forward-looking direction is on the voting rights act for voting rights in general.

a great example for me is intimidation for people would stand outside of poles it appears to be a threat. the easy way to consider this is if you are taking time out of your day within the context of building show up at the polls. an hour or two, three hours sometimes going with the potential of their being a

threat upon your person, your life. i'm not going to take my timeout if i have to worry about my safety and this is what we are up against. >> thirty days from an election, will keep you awake at night? potential effects because of the jobs decision in texas and florida where we see laws world

out with a given the green light i think about my daughter, she 17. that excitement for some of their friends, it's very because they don't know. we get reports of the time and we have seen in the texas legislature how they removed the ballot box from the university

so now i have to figure out a way because they know in texas you can request a male invalid difficult to vote. they don't know what to expect because of the rollback. >> thanks for having us. when are they not relevant? i think what's important is that often felt like voting rights

are to unlock all the other rights. black and brown people still and then you have the voting rights act so what we have seen is 2013 of the rollback and that's been decided to slowly and power to make decisions in the rollback at the supreme court in the legislation and the power back which was to make federal legislation to hold them accountable and prevent discrimination what we need to do is get legislation back make

sure there is equity at the pole and i'm not saying voting is the only way but is the most powerful form of nonviolent tool we have. >> i'm going to assume voting rights because of what you do. how much harder is it to reach the communities that haven't been reached before?

i want to pose a couple questions. why do we have an electoral college? why don't have to raise money to do voter registration? they have to come to you. why? latino communities will, why are they running to me? people like the loan must read tweeting close information?

they walk to check people helping. why? we have done a lot. make us a better nation and a number of movements in democracy. we see a movement trying to make

sure. as we become more powerful, this is not new. this is what we are discussing today. black and brown alliance and during this from the democratic process. that is what is at stake. pushing the envelope.

a labor movement and we are going to do this. [applause] >> for what's keeping you awake at night -- >> there are a few ways to look at this. he of voters in personally latino and immigrant. what we have seen over the past few years to make sure they don't run out because they see gen z progressive and i don't mean that any political sense,

democratic country and what we have seen his effort to prevent that from happening which looks for different way. the government does not want noncitizens to vote. we don't want to seem 22 and this year where there is intentional effort to remove these locations and enforcement is so stand in line for hours to count ballots.

how difficult it might be you have divination as a and a paper due, it affects because students are voting in the middle in between classes and do not have time for those responsibilities. encourage people to and it's like georgia can no longer provide hundred 2022 day

bankrupt and we have to accept this. >> we are going to get to who they are in the second but first, i'm glad you brought up colleges. the student prepared mission to bring court ruling, how much harder do you think finding that new electorate new electorate if

it keeps getting enforced? >> there's a lot of organizing on campus and overall enrollment and there is structure there that is easier to plug into

where a lot of people are. what is harder is when they called to the workforce or trade schools or community colleges and the way our economy is, there is more opportunity with trade so we had to think not just about organizing on campus but it's absurd what supposed to be the greatest democracy and

it's on the young person or the voters themselves and we do nothing to prepare young people to participate in elections and understand the process of registering for the importance of their vote for the history of how they got the right to vote and we have to do more of that. >> i want to test a theory -- raise your hand if yes but ignore me if no. his campus best place for political organizations to reach them? i see some babies.

>> i will add there's a lot of confusion for students, which address should i use? if i use one address over the other, will i lose my natural aid? is a lot of questions young people have when it comes to college campus. >> one of the most interesting things is in many cases colleges are not the best place because it's a safe space and gen z has a lot you're dealing with. i don't want it on my own campus

life and running between classes so a lot of the things we have have been programmed to engage outside to find them who might not be in college and reuse commercial data unregistered voters and had information but also included we were testing them they have been confused for have these to them with this perspective. in.

>> how does lack of our intention of diversity, how does it affect educators? >> we have to grapple with reality educators do not reflect. k-12 or higher education is a huge issue think about what carolyn mentioned, our k-12 system is perfectly positioned to help students develop democratically and build community so when you think limited to figure six. in vote for student council they begin a practice of democracy. terminal my senior year in high school when you turn 18 they

would ask you, what is your favorite candy bar? about was taking sure you are registered to vote and in texas the principal given this assignment and can delegate from the campus to bring in democracy will. for a lot of communities especially elementary school they set up polling sites in the elementary school because the

community coming in and the kids see democracy and action. they said soon of safety potential violence or gun violence are it's safe we going to. i was not about keeping kids safe, was taking it out of school for kids adults in the community educating their rights. we have a lot of work to do to make sure we build engagement see opportunity for unibody president and the opportunities we have within our k-12 system to show how democracy works but

how does it not translate to make that easier to participate in the electoral process? >> that's getting to it. in theory because of the affirmative action we now know the class of 2028 under the supreme court ruling. what does it mean nondiscrimination is being used? >> when we think about this, and

attempt at correcting or inequality and primarily white wealthy is favored over black and brown students, men over women but this is happening within universities and college as it is is a gateway not only for engagement but also the greater possibility of higher wages, basically baking in inequality within this lawsuit was that it was discriminatory.

what i'm saying is progress from where we are and already present. a bit of the irony is not only among candidates across the country have we seen significant decrease in admissions of asian students, among those who are part of this, this was used as justification sometimes legacy missions so they are banned from the system. this is the swift coming down

and those who felt discriminated against or justification of removal or you are advantage because of a couple of additional points and legacy was on par with affirmative-action so you have competitive cases but we don't really know what it's going to look like long run like a huge uptick fixing out of what would be otherwise ready to

go. comes to trying to activate, bring young people into the democratic system will we run examples, 2022 where they are

just outside a polling station and they are just asking voters in this case, read over. democracy at work.

in civil rights and it was great but i want to get into how we got here.

as independent pop into the equation. we are the same things.

agenda the world shows about first. advancing through the years.

we cannot fall into this trap. there are so many elements. it is movement these rights. now that we are working, it is the same agenda. the tina community. if one of your african-american classes and the american community and same issues.

let me show one element of democracy. immigrants democratic. it is so hard process and the fact that we have seen this in the past. what have ended where you have these officers going to the

house of an 80-year-old. it is laughable. horrible history we have right now is democracy and that can happen november 6 so we need the careful. we cannot go back.

to get permission than other groups to speak and act this way. >> not only are they passing legislation but we see encouragement. with a lot of what has happened about haitian immigrants are illegal immigrants. then started around that the

shooting and bomb threats schools evacuated, hospitals evaluated it's all about. there only path to electoral success is piling up fears because they can't win on the merit of the country is more diverse. the term comes from but refers

to the segment of old, elected officials, political activists and voters behind them that's a return of democracy. it is not relegated to us will political figure for political party but concentration of ideologies are. does anyone think there's a room with these horrible decisions

are made? connect and want to have the federal level.

in texas you see the correlation between the increase of funding public education for the correlation between service the correlation of this impacting everyone because they are trying to find a way, we are going to disinvest and what we know little of the communities like public education and services in college universities which you see the impact of the rising cost of higher education, it's all connected.

a lot of it is coalescing nationally but in different states and communities 20, 30 plus years. >> going to ask you all the same question. i will push back a little bit on this when it comes to thinking about this because it drives and they have no idea what's going on. yes, there is a coordinated effort but the beginning we start from is there throwing stuff at the wall until it works. i didn't need to say -- i just said it three times. i didn't mean to say. i'm kidding but within the

debate when trump was talking about eating cats and dogs and what, they check him on that, is checked about the statement in fact the walk to back saying well, i heard it on tv. he's throwing stuff other ways that i think if we infer or assume a deeply permitted effort of there being a set of message frameworks used pushed out to the public, there is a family going on and because of that the

view that there might be a double instead of elites planning this and throw cold water on the extent in which they can believe and it's one reason we move away from this idea is a handful of elite levels as of what they're doing and not just losing it -- there is -- over what it is the countries are coming or how politics are changing. >> there's a coordinated effort to track, rollback civil rights

and i can't say this word -- english as a second language here. it is an effort to win political bar. my question for all you is, what is this audience, how are they supposed to manage their will into political life one that exists? any takers? >> specifically talking about young voters this is one of many

who may have seen the worst of humanity with 9/11. we've never had a come together moment. never had one of those moments. we seen things happening no action. also ended something we are

working on part because he may not be fired for the candidate and my message to them, how do you expect things that are? are you improving your life if you are not personally. what are the biggest strengths empathy is anything we've seen top of mind with palestinian people and women who lost their reproductive rights and we see

them rally and use that energy and empathy action protect them. >> a clear representation of hope. the 1990s and the key element of organizing for the community and the political the data center clear and in only ten

years the most excellent statement and the predecessor. totally changed and ten years were able to give and its face with hope presidential election. we say enough is enough. what happens when we turn,

mostly mexican. what happens when it changes? what happens to democracy that makes it better? the clear message here, black and latino minorities are invested in democracy. the majority of work communities with a continuation. one community and the nation and that was 50%. invest in the latino and minorities, we are saying get the political infrastructures in

one and we are the space of hope. we deliver in a right way. >> running out of time but let's hear your final thoughts. >> a democratic movement, only a small group of people can actually vote in this country and have power. now if you have power and there are 41 million voters of selection is everyone shows up, there is no stopping the latter

how much landing there was. or native efforts when rope took place, there was a coordinated effort and legislative so you can look at pro-democracy people and that includes voters. campy looking at one election cycle one race at a time. we need all the pieces and be smart about this long-term. >> with team of hope building the community you deserve is based on your ability to determine every decision from of

the vast majority of policies that impact our daily life start that the local level from your school board to your city council to your county government and often times we are not paying attention. your ability to read the books that reflect who we are, the vast majority are at the school board level not state legislatures so we have the opportunity to build the communities we deserve by engaging at the local level counsel grades, they meet once a month. we have a potential to impact docket. election process to build the

community we deserve by building the communities we deserve and we will build a nation that is global and just for all of us. >> among black and black communities, they have been facing robots. there's out of merit a moment for that haven't been backsliding but they have in getting us through this. the engagement when it comes to democratic engagement like diving into the process. we carry our ancestors with us.

>> one can be met with another coordinated and we are way out of time. [laughter] >> i hope you are all expired. i'd like to express my gratitude both here and align figures that

might again to those listening at home. further article partnership and justice build little power and move us closer justice and in equity. , last month a partnership the effort to bring together black and brown voices to the coronation. special thank you to my building.

they have made everything work thank you. mike today we have discussed a rise in hate crime across the nation's and divided resulting in real attacks and our freedom. the democratic institution have discussed our time that is corruption of our hard earned rights. these concerns are real. they worry me as someone who's spent a decade researching hate crimes and democratic renewal. fewer rights today in the day he was born. they worry me as a humanitarian arrested for protesting to stand

against this. but for every worry i have hope. i hope in the solutions we landed on today and we have started in the unity on display. united our community has the power to change the future of the country. our democracy is strongest when our communities participate in while we may care about different issues or different priorities, our political power is august when we speak with one voice. martin luther king jr. said anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. you heard today they have shared the injustice and the challenges we face collectively.

we know the solutions are only possible if and when we are united. [applause] it is important to remember the political tool is our right to vote. give us the ballot before he told the world. we do not abandon our fight against injustice. that is the pope we hold in gathering today that we make strengthen our movement he sent in equity and continued

discussion maintain diverse dialogue can achieve this. advancing the values of the key legacy realizing the of doctor martin luther king jr. something he called a beloved community. equal opportunity and love of a fellow human being. through collective work and collaborative community we can build a community. no individual or organization can do it alone is a key step in that mission of unity. ...

>> we must have a diversity of voices to advance our cause. diversity of choices and believes make us more effective. that is why the unity on display today is critical to our move and continuing to grow. this movement exemplifies the unity reminiscent of 1963 when union workers and people of all races and creeds marched side-by-side just a few miles away from here to demand jobs and freedom on the steps of the lincoln memorial. it is the same unity today, that same commitment that we will need to meet today's challenges. we are at a time today where the hard-fought victories of the civil rights movement are being rolled back. people were beaten and

assassinated just to pass the voting rights act. and it is been decimated. women marched for the right for the bottled autonomy, and is been take away. a along the country, specific groups continue to fuel a cultural war that marginalizes our most vulnerable fellow americans. we must confront legislative hate. as coretta scott king said come freedom is never really one. you must earn it. you must earn it and each generation and feed the flames of heat and justice and equity. this conference is not about conversation. it is not earning that freedom here it's about taking action. the insight shared here can empower all of us to enact meaningful change within our community and advocate for the

policies that are necessary to confront the challenges of our time. we came here today that only to educate but to offer tangible solutions to stop the rising tide of hate and in the erosion of our democracy. we came here to empower our communities and ensure that we participate in our election. we came here today to meet the moment. as our ancestors did on the edmund pettus bridge, and at the east l.a. walk out, and on the national mall in 1963. now it's our turn. now we must do the work. i would like to say that this work isn't about collective guilt. it's about collective responsibility. we have the responsibility to our ancestors and to the generations that come behind us to take on this work and advance

this movement. we are united today. now we must do the work to ensure that we are united tomorrow. we must do the work to ensure our movement continues to stand up to injustice. we must do the work to raise our voices and the voices of the oppressed. martin luther king, jr. did not march from selma to montgomery alone. one person cannot carry the torch of our movement. we are united here today to share different worries, different solutions, and different hopes. but each with the same goal, to build a beloved community and continue to feed the flame of peace, of justice and equity for all. thank you all very much for joining us. i hope that you will continue to be a a part of our work.

[applause] >> and you are dismissed. [inaudible conversations] >> do you solemnly swear that the test when you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> weeknights watcher encore presentation of american histo ten part series congress investigates as we explore major investigation on the u.s. house and senate in our country's is to get authors and destroyed will tell these stories and see store footage from those times and examines ed

the impact the legacy of key congressional hearings. tonight lawmakers of 1973 and 74 examined the fence surrounding the 1972 rake in the democratic national committee headquarters at the watergate hotel in washington, d.c. the investigation led to the resignation of president nixon. watch congress investigates tonight at ten eastern on c-span2. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including comcast. >> are you thinking this is just a concentric? it's way more the net. >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers to create wi-fi enabled lift zones so students can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span is a publicervice along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat t democracy.

>> with one of the tightest races for control of congress in modern political history stay ahead with c-span's comprehensive coverage of key state debates. this fall c-span brings your access to the nation's top house, senate and governor debates from across the country. the base from races that are shaping your states future and bows the power in washington. follow our campaign 20.4 coverage from local to national debates anytime online at c-span.org/campaign and be sure to watch tuesday november 5 for a live real-time election might result. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. powered by cable. >> republican congressman kelly armstrong and the seller candidates in the 2024 race for north dakota governor, independent michael coachman and democrat merrill piepkorn participate in a debate hosted

by perry public. the discussed number of topics including race due to the cost of living and abortion policy. representative armstrong was considered the favorite to win this race and the nonpartisan cook political report with amy walter rated the race solid republican. this is a less less than one hour. ♪ been. >> hello. i'm dave thompson and welcome to the republic and mrp election coverage 124. 124. tonight the debate for office of north dakota governor. i guess our republican congressman kelly armstrong, democratic state senator merrill piepkorn independent candidate michael coachman. each candidate will be afforded a one minute opening in one minute closing statement in between the debate and discuss topics and questions that a been chosen by myself, matt also for

the partners at aarp. michael coachman goes first. >> hello. i want to thank everybody. first of all, want to thank my lord and savior jesus christ as my lord and savior of what you think also perry public for making this event happen. as running for governor i like to let let people know what i plan on doing and where i stand. one of the things i want to stand on is the u.s. constitution. also the north dakota constitution. why is that important? because without the constitution we are no better than any other country. 95-98% of the issues that we have an north dakota can be a leaved by just people following the constitution of the u.s. and north dakota. with that, in the bill that will come across my desk i want to make sure that these two books are followed, and if the benefits the people of north

dakota. that way you know where our government stands and where you stand as an individual. thank you. >> next will be congressman armstrong. >> thank you, dave for hosting this. they could aarp and republican thank you to all of the people watching at home will give me the privilege of serving first in the state senate and in the united states congress and now this to miss opportunity and responsibility to run for governor of the great state in the greatest country in history of the world. i have always, always tried advocate for north dakota in the most positive way possible. tireless energy from beulah to bismarck to fargo to mental to all the places in between. we have such tremendous opportunities in this state and we have opportunities to continue to grow, harbors our national resources in a responsible way. ag and energy of the most boring making sure every single kid that goes to high school in north dakota has an opportunity to build a life and career.

it's been my great post a short north dakota in the u.s. house of representatives for the last six years but i'm really, really excited about coming home. >> okay, senator piepkorn. >> thank you, dave faq numbers of prairie public. dave thompson, our moderator tonight and, of course, aarp for hosting tonight event. i also want to extend our thoughts and prayers to our residents of north dakota especially the folks at west, our emergency responders as they still are battling those wildfires in the western part of the state. i am real popcorn, i'm candidate for governor of north dakota. morgan stanley, raised in fargo and served eight years in the state senate. will discuss many topics tonight. tonight. i believe you'll find significant differences between the two other men here on stage with me. if you like to want to be governor for all of north dakota. i'm not beholden to special interests. leave and bipartisanship in putting the good of the state had any elitist or political

party or philosophy. we've had enough extremists legislation that interferes with peoples personal lives. that sets me apart in part from my opponents in several ways. first of all, a woman's right to determine her own health care. >> one minute. >> thank you. >> so first topic let's start with measure number four where voters will be asked to decide whether or not local property taxes should be eliminated. estimates show this day would have to find about $3.1 billion per biennium to replace those taxes. i have a two-part question for all of you. how would you vote on the measure? and if it passes, where does the state find the money? we start with kelly armstrong. >> i don't support measure four. i understand the frustration. i've been from one of the state to the other since january and every two years running for congress people are frustrated. people are angry. people want property tax relief and want property tax reform. the problem i see is that, one, you are absolutely giving up

opportunities to rattle money from out-of-state interests to buy lancome do those types of things. the other edge is i quite frankly if you get through this bismarck, grand forks, those types of places do okay. you will start losing absolute local control in this mode committees. we have a great state centered in north dakota but some of them represent five or six school districts in north dakota legislature. having to go to the legislature every two years to deal with those things is going to be really, really problematic and we need to continue to do it. i think property taxes have to be front of my one way or the other whether the measure passes, whether the measure fails. if the measure passes you wanted to cut programs, that money, figure out how you deal with those things we start rating principal on some of our funds like the legacy fund which means you'll depleted for future generations. if it doesn't pass we better be serious about not only doing more relief to property tax but significantly reforming it. the legislature over the last 12 years has been good at buy downs.

we buy them an average 40% of local property tax all across the state. the problem is we haven't been good at lowering property taxes and that's where the frustration buys and the opportunities to do that that we've encoded one part of it but if the state will be involved in buying down 50% of the local share property tax and we have to have a say in how those local property tax budgets grow. i plan and voting no including to cut back and services to the local political subdivisions. kelly mentioned a couple. i will mention townships.

townships have no taxing authority. they got hundreds of miles of roads the responsible for. cost a lot to gravel and maintain and pay those roads. with the maintainer to keep them level. they need a lot of work. concern about them in particular. when it comes to how he could replace it if it does pass, what are we going to do? people will be lining up and asking the state for help. that's going to be tough, like we are talking about either cut services which will happen or raise taxes are most likely it would be both. who wants to see a statewide sales tax? who wants to see special fees placed on anything from hunting, morpheus on hunting and licensing fees, to specialties in the cities or finds such as the prairie dog fund is been a great benefit to me people across the state.