washington policy-making for all to see, bringing you unfiltered content from congress and beyond. a lot has changed in 40 years, but today, that big idea is more relevant than ever, on television and online, c-span is your unfiltered view of government, so you can make up your own mind, brought to you as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. >> a discussion now on how to preserve and rebuild black communities. the institute of the black world 21st century hosted a national town hall meeting in newark, new jersey. speakers included newark's mayor as well as economist julianne malveaux, mark thompson moderated the discussion. >> it's not by accident, we are here because at the state of the black world conference, we came deliberately to put a focus on newark. a focus on newark because we believe in what's happening in

newark, a focus in newark because of the history of struggle here, protracted struggle, rebellion, resistance, triumph, tragedy, and moving forward, and the eventual ascension to the office of mayor of roz j.baraka. give it up. [ cheers and applause ] but it's not just about him and i will never forget, i was struck by his slogan, hit me. he said when i become mayor, we become mayor. >> right. >> and what that said was this is ujima, collective work and responsibility, and so there are policies being elam naboratedel. last year we talked about a marshal plan because's called for a marshal plan and we are going to work toward the creation of a marshal plan to get massive investment in these cities. no matter what our mayors do, for all of the good efforts that are made, unless we can get massive resources in our

community, we are not going to be able to solve all the problems. so we must fight for reparations and we must fight for marshal plan. [ applause ] now of course this question of struggling justification is not without controversy. it's complex. it's difficult. and so there are voices who may agree and disagreen a and that' fine. disagreement as long as it's constructive and intended to help move the process, it should be welcomed. nobody ever said it would be comfortable. it has to be creative tension and out of that creative tension comes better partnerships. it sharpens our analysis and our thinking. i want to put that out there. this is not about a blanket endorsement of anyone. it is about an understanding that someone has the right vision, the right direction, because where there is no vision we for sure know the people will perish. so vision is the most important thing, and values behind that. so we just wanted to lay that out there in terms of where

we're going. we will be back to newark. across this country, black people and black institutions are being displaced so we came here to newark, because there are at least efforts that are being made to try to mitigate this. it doesn't mean that's necessarily always being successful because gentrification is a monster. it ain't the first time that black people have been removed. that's what we talked about the negro removed in the 21st century. last century it was urban renewal. as long as white supremacy is in place and a capitalist political economy, we will always be challenged until we transform that system. [ applause ] so now i want to introduce a number of other people to you, because we had this summit for the last couple of days. it was a summit so everybody couldn't come to the summit because it was a summit. we convened some of the most brilliant minds, activists, organizers, elected officials, faith leaders, all across this

country to come and deliberate and share our ideas about how we are going to deal with this crisis, and we are going to deal with it. in fact, david harris from the charles hamilton houston institute for race and justice from harvard, he said you know, ron, we came here under an emergency, but we are now emerging. >> yeah. >> we are emerging. we will be victorious. we want to let you know we can't introduce them all because that would be too difficult. we want to have all of the resource people who came from all across the country just to stand up so people can see you. [ applause ] >>yeah. yeah. >> all right, thank you very much. yeah. yeah. >> all right, thank you very much. now i'd like to introduce the panel today and the format is a conversational format. this is format to try to tap into the wisdom, the ideas, the

experiences of these folks on the stage who have come from different cities from across the country, from different disciplines, different experiences, different expertise, to share with you and among themselves a part of what we've been thinking about, what we've been trying to do in terms of dealing with gentrification. let me just start in no particular order, they can just give a wave and starting off with dr. jeffrey lowe, associate professor in the department of urban planning and environmental policy at texas southern university from houston, texas. give him a wave. [ applause ] and returning, the return of the native son, i was so happy because i knew him from the jackson camp andy meon, one of your favorites here for you many, many years. he is now the president of the council of bishops of ame church. he is president of all the ame bishops. would you please welcome your own bishop reginald jackson.

l&m lee the community of economic development from the great city of new orleans. next brother needs no introduction, revolutionary in office, assem blaeman charles barron from east new york. [ applause ] all the way from omaha, nebraska, the african-american empowerment network in omaha and my judgment one of the most formidable powerful models of operational unity i know, would you please welcome willie barney. [ applause ] and you know, one of our favorite places happens to be down somewhere in mississippi, right? we got a whole lot of love for jackson, mississippi, right? well, mayor lamumba couldn't be here. he apologized. he sent his chief of staff dr.

sophia amari, chief of staff for mayor lamumba. [ applause ] and of course, she needs no introduction either because she is like everywhere. she is a bad sister. y'all know her well. she just gets stuff done. she was on my radio show the other day and she almost took the show over, but that's all right. and that's frederica bayh, all right? and that's women in support of the million man march and has she been supporting the million man march, a great servant. also we have joining us shortly if he hasn't already, chairman larry hamm. did chairman larry hamm show up? the chairman. [ cheers and applause ] the chairman larry hamm is in the house. and finally another brilliant mind, one of the great faith leaders in this country has come to join us all the way from oakland, california, he is with

the live free initiative of the faith in action, they call him pastor mike, it is reverend michael mcbride, all the way from berkeley, california. [ applause ] reverend? and last but not least, my dear friend, who has been the one who has moderated in so many things, you see him on msnbc, his own radio program, did i forget dr. julianne malveaux, i don't want to get smacked, all right, so i was going down my list. y'all know her, right? i don't want to miss her. she is black america's leading political economist and much more, the president emeritus of bentley college for women, dr. julianne malveaux is in the house. [ cheers and applause ] and before i forget i have to say because on your program you have danny glover, right? but i have to apologize for danny.

listen to me carefully. danny was here yesterday. he was in new york, planning an event for harry belafonte but he's a film star in television and had to go back for a shooting but sends his regrets. you know danny is with us. you know he loves us so he sends his love and respect so let's give it up for danny glover anyhow. [ applause ] i guess i forgot another one. oh, yeah. okay, all right. get it together, ron. and also from the rainbow push coalition, the vice president and chief strategy for engagement programs of the rainbow push coalition, reverend dr. sheridan todd yeri. from chicago. thank you, reverend dylan for saving me from myself. and by the way, the way we'll do this is a conversation, moderated by my dear beloved friend coming up, time permitting. we will have index cards and

we'll hopefully entertain a few questions, but the way we'll do it is you'll raise your hand, get index cards to you, take the first four, see how that rolls. at the conclusionthe day, the m important thing is that we hear from our host, that's how we are rolling. moderating the session, every time you turn on msnbc, he is on, my dear beloved friend dr. mark thompson. >> thank you, all right, god bless you. what it is. it is good to be here in newark, new jersey, i was just at reverend al sharpton's

convention, and i just interviewed cory booker a few minutes ago, and i want to let doctor mcdaniels and others to know i did my best to get him to change his schedule to be with us, we almost did it, but he also sends his greetings, as well, and understands the importance of this conversation. in terms of the elected officials, he was a student at howard university, in 1990, reverend wilson remembers we organized the student boycott of virginia beach, virginia, black lives matter is a new term, but our struggle has been going on all these years, and

you remember what happened with the students at virginia beach, a place we always went to on labor day weekend, i want to acknowledge the longevity of the mayor, ras baraka's , relationship, we had no idea where would be, it could have gone the other way, but god has put us in the position to continue to serve our people, and he is continuing in the footsteps of the great ken gibson, and his father, amiri baraka. give a round of applause again. >> [ applause ]>> we were together in 1990, i usually tell people i'm a millennial, don't tell anybody. that 1990 story doesn't leave this room okay? all right, doctor ron daniels,

i have a lot of affection for ron, because i know the sacrifices he makes for our people. he is not someone who is in the so-called celebrity echelon so to speak. he works so hard, and tirelessly, it is really very touching, you feel bad, and i see anybody i can do to help you, he takes it all on himself. at a stage in life there that's where a lot of folks are giving up, he has not done that. he himself, even though they were somewhat., -- peers, we needed to figure out who's going to pick up the mantle in terms of conscious and woke academia. people going to the big ivory

towers, they are not in touch with our people, ron has continued to do that, and has been a consummate organizer, think things, things like this, going all the way to the first black convention in gary, indiana, so we are just so thankful for what he does and what he continues to do. and i don't mind saying it, you're on c-span, sirius xm, he holds the record of any individual of having c-span broadcast as events. -- is events. they say, how can i get on c- span, get ron daniels, c-span will be right there.>> [ laughter ]>> give doctor ron

daniels a warm round of applause for everything he does and everything he is. >> [ applause ]>> and doctor matt ron walters, we were -- dr. ron walters. i made a decision that i would have dr. ron walters come and sit with dyck gregory, --. a working definition of self- determination. -- dick gregory . self- determination, a people's command and control of their own cultural death destiny -- their own cultural destiny. and their own political destiny,

without any external interference from any external forces. when we talk about this issue of gentrification, that is not self-determination. people decide where we live, where we move, what we do, they want to live into the suburbs, you can move back into the city, and if we want to move into the city, you have to move out, we can't have anything. who's to say 50 years from now, they pushes out of the city, we want the suppers back, you have to move back into the city. that is not living, that is not being in control of ourselves as a free people. that is why this conversation is important. we will begin the conversation in the narrative, each of the

panelists, joe responded to this -- shall respond to this, what does gentrification look like in your community, based on your organization or institution? this will give us a greater picture of how this is happening, for this international audience that is watching, we know what is happening, but the panelists will give us more specifics and detail on what is happening right where they can see it. we will go down the line. good evening, thank you dr. daniels, friday night you could be anywhere, but you want to suck up some knowledge, so we

appreciated. doctor mcdaniels asked me to provide some cultural context to the gentrification, it is an assault, been there, and done that, african-american people were losing, the 2008 recession caused us to lose a significant amount of wealth, and opening the possibility for land takeover. in the wake of enslavement, i have this computer here, not because i need it, but a couple of numbers i need to have, 1880, black folks at one dollar for every $36 that white people had. in 1890, one dollar for every $26. 1900, $23, 1910, $16.

but dig this. today we have seven dollars for every $100 white folks have, or one dollar for every $18, from a wealth accumulation perspective, we are worse off. in 2018, then we were 1910. we were enslaved, or just out of enslavement, all these degrees, folks got running around. we did not have those degrees then, 1 in 100 of us, and know better than high schools really. our churchgoing brothers and sisters, baking cakes, able to accumulate in ways we had never before now, and what happened?

first of all, there is nothing trifling about the black community collectively, when we talk about the wealth gap, we'll tell you we have some deficiencies, we do not, we live in an era with posterity, and economic envy, when we get it, white folks wanted, that is just how it goes. in 1910 we had over 100 black- owned banks, now we have 23, some of it was changing bank regulations that were intentional. and he was ostentatious, they took his bank, they said he was arrogant, they put it on a piece of paper.

one of his contemporaries was the first black woman to start a bank, it was called penny savings bank. it into the consolidating in 1929, 1930, and it became consolidated savings bank. but bank had people getting homes because they were lending money to black people when other people would not. so it's important to understand, we have a desk made economic progress, but economic envy is we'll -- real. tulsa, oklahoma was about economic envy. the melanin deficient will tell you that tulsa was about a young shoeshine guy, raped or assaulted sarah page, a 17-year- old elevator operator, not, dr.

olivia hooker died, she was something else, she was 6 when it happened, she remembers hiding under her table, lots of white people come in, this memory of the folks who were so envious. broke her muscle -- mother's rigor, burned close, just evil, because black people had too much. when the oklahoma governor later asked for a commission to investigate it, nobody went to jail, a black physician came out of his house and they shot him and killed him. we don't know how many people were killed, some say 300, some say 600, we know that blocks were eviscerated and millions of dollars were lost. and we know that nobody paid anything.

the red cross did not even want to go to tulsa, they ended up going through external forces, they had us in concentration camps. the black women of the rich areas were not allowed to leave the reservation unless they would go through days work for white people. >> limit to say this, i apologize, we want to give everyone three or four minutes, you have time to get the rest of it.>> he did asked for the historical context. history takes a long time. >> [ applause ] >> [ laughter ] >> anyway, the tulsa peas, white folks have been stockpiling guns and waiting for an excuse, when the

governor's commission came in, they said too many you know what with too much money. we need to be clear that anytime we could accumulate cup public policy has taken away from us, public policy has conspired against us, the g.i. bill, when you look at public policy, the ways that we have been systematically discriminated against, and as i listen to mayor ras baraka, whether his vacant land, it needs to be redistributed to those who have been systematically sidelined. is utterly inexcusable for this wealth gap to exist, as hard as black people work. a final point before he

snatches the microphone. when we look at this in the context of economic envy, we must look at the ways that we have to resist, the resistance we must put out there, we have black mayors who don't have the sensibility of a ras baraka. they never met a developer that they don't want to slow dance with, to our detriment. ? city councilmembers taking money under the table so they can exploit our people. final point. financial literacy is not public policy, we must be responsible stewards of that which we have been blessed with. save and invest, but if we did that, we couldn't close the

wealth. if you say economic development, you say financial literacy, we want our share, reparations now. >> [ applause ] >> amen . i apologize, i should've told you three or four minutes, i apologize. let me also apologize, please keep dr. malveux's mother and prayer. our esteemed elders have come into the room, i need to ask their permission to continue, dr. jeffries. may we have your permission to continue? what does gentrification look like in your community, institutional, down the line, charles. three or four minutes please.

we will come back.>> i want to take the possibility that doctor mcdaniel spoke of to create the -- provide the creative tension, i would like to play that role. only because we can talk about education, but there is a larger problem, a racist, predatory, bloodsucking capitalist system. the solution is revolution. it is socialism. the solution is us electing black officials that are not descriptively black, they look like us, but authentically black, they are committed to us. our biggest problem in our neighborhood is black

neocolonial puppets of the democratic party. that is the problem in our neighborhood new york. , we stop gentrification? how does a look and east new york? does not exist. because i have a beautiful african queen wife, who was a city councilmember, i'm a state assembly member, when the developers came to our community and they showed us these pretty pictures, we asked them, what is the ami, the area median income requirement, because if it is not new york, you are not building it. east new york, the community has the largest increase in the

black population. 13.2%. harlem lost 14%, a 400% increase in whites. losing 16% of these. i can come before you and say i actually lost white population in my community. they left. i didn't asked -- ask them why, they left, if you see 1-5 whites in my neighborhood, they are passing through. on a serious note, we have 13,000 black elected members, we need to get radical, revolutionaries elected.

really committed to us, just having a black face in a high place doesn't mean anything. even if you are a president, they said don't mess with a black president, when you don't mess with black leaders in high places, we are in a difficult situation. we have to deal with it, if we don't, i will say this and run out of your. -- out of here. one of the good things about having trump, if you had had somebody else, you would've thought you made progress, and you would've been cool. this fool is disrupting the whole world. everybody is angry with him, so it provides more impetus for the movement. if hillary would've been elected, you all would have been saying wow, we got a woman

elected, you would've thought you had some progress, and you would have gone to sleep. capitalism is predatory, and if you go for what they call the compassionate capitalism, an oxymoron, compassionate capitalism is you get a $15 minimum wage and some food stamps. it is to get a few jobs and programs for your community, but it still provides the impetus for the rich, it still exploits, but as malcolm says, you suffer peacefully because you have the wrong people in power, i have more to stay -- more to say later, stay ready for the revolution, because that is the only solution. >> [ applause ] reverend thompson: i just want to make sure we are still on the

air. [laughter] i just want to make sure were still on the air. >> [ laughter ] >> role carl -- roll call, vai, are we good? -- wbai. i see a red light on c- span, we are good, amen. somebody once asked me in an interview, what do you think about the most powerful political couple in american history, and they thought i was going to talk about half of the couples he mentioned, and i said you mean charles? [ laughter ] what does gentrification look like to you and your community, and the institutions you serve. >> good evening.

i bring you greetings from jackson, mississippi. >> amen. >> on behalf of the mayor. i would like to say that he is not one of those politicians that we have referenced earlier. in jackson, we are in the process of rebuilding. of rebuilding the city that has been exploited and divested from for decades. even with black leadership. even though we don't face gentrification the way many of our other urban areas are facing it, we understand that as soon as we rebuild it, we

will have to address it. our mayor often makes the statement that we will not move our people from one state of misery to another. and that is essentially what gentrification is. our commitment to our people is to involve them in their government. our commitment is to design our economy, which we call the dignity economy, meaning that every single citizen in jackson, mississippi, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. regardless of their economic status, social status, their level of education, we would have been committed to building

a just society for all human beings. when building that just society, we understand the relationship that we as proprietors, and elected officials, the rule that we have to serve, we have to serve the role of servant leadership. we are servants, servants of the people. we understand that so often we don't listen, especially when we get elected, or we have the doctors, the letters behind our names, we often think that we have the solution, but we have come to understand that we cannot craft solutions unless we craft them in concert with the people who put us in office. so as we build, as we build, we

constantly touch base with our citizens, we have what we call people's assemblies, we go out, when we get ready to do something within the city, we say what you think about this, and if you agree with this, how should it be structured, what is the best way this will affect you? we are implementing participatory budgeting, to help people understand, they see millions of dollars in the budget, they don't understand how it is allocated or used, we want them to understand the budget so they can make meaningful input into how their tax dollars are being used within the city of jackson. so i don't want to go over my three or four minutes, for those of you not aware, our current mayor is the son of the

revolutionary attorney and member of the new action independence movement. free the land. free the land. his father made a statement, he was elected as mayor in jackson in 2013. he passed on after 10 months in office. during his campaign, he made the statement that we all hold very dearly. if you don't love the people, you will eventually betray the people. >> [ applause ]>> we have to put

people in office who love the people. then we have to hold them accountable. because power is very seductive. we have to make sure that those of us who love the people, that we elevate to these people will -- positions of servant leadership, are held accountable, so the love can continue, and we can craft freedom and self-determination together. thank you. free the land. >> [ applause ] >> his father, and his son said to me that we can take

mississippi back. black folks can govern, just like the sister tried to do in georgia, we can take mississippi back, all right. please, gentrification from your perspective. >> my name is ellen lee, i'm here on behalf of latoya cantrell, the first female mayor of the city of new orleans, in the 300 year history. she is amazing, she is a community organizer, the work she did after katrina, organizing the community, one of the neighborhoods that they said would not be able to rebuild, too much water in your neighborhood, and she said i will be doggone if that's going to happen, not today.

so the neighborhood would come back, the people of new orleans would be able to come back and live where they choose to live, and not where someone else tells them to live. i am also lifelong in new orleans, i have seen the changes that have happened, i leave -- i live in the tremaine neighborhood. when i was growing up, a lot of vacancies, a lot of blight, house prices, my grandmother lives in the same house, when she tells me that price is not neighborhood, some of you on the east coast, this is nothing, $250,000 for a house in the neighborhood i grew up in, i can't believe it. i tell her first of all, do not open the door when people come knocking, and the second thing is, the homestead, we are

holding on to that land. for us, gentrification looks like families who at the wages they are currently making, have to work over 100 hours per week to be able to afford living in new orleans. you would be having to make $22- $25 per hour to be able to afford it. to those who have come and experienced our highest -- hospitality, like nowhere else, it doesn't pay $22 per hour. imagine the hardship on people. downtown in new orleans, i have never seen it being developed in the way that it has.

nothing affordable, people could actually be close to the jobs they have. but we have policies in place to make that happen. hurricane katrina accelerated the gentrification, as government officials we have to take responsibility for our part in doing that. we have to hold ourselves accountable for the role we played in that, what that means is that people are being pushed out into the outer areas of the city. that is not cool, but it might be all right if we had great public transportation, or other services in those areas. so that is what that looks like for us, the service economy is

being compromised, if i can't get to work, i'm trouble when my bus is late, i might lose my job. things like that, literally our culture, musicians and artisans can't afford to live in the city that they create, we've got a problem. that's what gentrification looks like in new orleans. >> [ applause ] >> mentioning a black woman mayor in new orleans, and we just had another one in chicago, so the sisters are coming on strong. i left new jersey in 2012, i was going to georgia, i was going to atlanta, i was going to be quiet and not get involved in fights and all the stuff and enjoy my life.

and sure enough, nothing changed. i have discovered that the problem of gentrification and some other evils which black's face are intentional. deliberate, their planned. when you ask what things like in atlanta. they just built mercedes-benz stadium. they hosted the super bowl on the west side of the city. gleaming, beautiful structure. the west side of atlanta is heavily low income, unemployment is high, people are struggling. it is also where the aau center is located, there is a

herculean fight, because developers want to take over the west side of atlanta, their intent is to move out the population that lives there now. and we are in some heckuva fight. to keep that from happening. it wouldn't have been so bad if it was just there, we just finished a major fight, because the state of georgia had the audacity to say we are going to take control of atlanta's airport. atlanta's airport is the busiest airport in the world, atlanta is a mecca for black's. because of the atlanta airport. maynard jackson, the development of atlanta airport, he's the one who made atlanta the hub that it is.

so atlanta is a major hub and mecca for black life. it has $34 billion of revenue generated, black businesses thrive in the city of atlanta. their attempt to take over atlanta airport had nothing to do with corruption, it's about getting there third -- filthy hands on $34 billion, it's about dismantling the black middle class, and i wish i could say what is happening in new york is happening in atlanta, but the white population of atlanta is increasing, the black population is decreasing. so when you ask what gentrification requires to be defeated, i say it again,

nothing changes without pressure. black folk got the fight -- have got to fight for something, and protecting our race is worth fighting for. i am a firm believer that we have to apply heat, but let me also say i'm a firm believer that you have to provide light. there are folks who do not want our people to see what is happening to us. that is why it is important for black leadership that it has some character and backbone. because we've got to help our people to see what is happening to us. so if you ask me what our biggest challenges, our challenge is to help our people to see. >> [ applause ]

>> great. i'm going to talk about gentrification broadly, and it's important for us to remember that gentrification is a process that has been at least more than 30 years in the making. gentrification is a process that includes disinvestment, reinvestment, and displacement. historically, we know about displacement. i am jeffrey low. -- lowe, i'm a professor in urban planning and environmental policy at texas southern. >> [ applause ] >> for the record. that disinvestment is based on

years of segregation, and lack of resources. redlining. blockbusting, and we know who benefited. they did not look like us. it is based on white supremacy and racism. what is different with the reinvestment from the past is that it is global. it is global capitalism. we have brazilians, asians, people from all over the world, they do not hold our values. they are not concerned about our improvement of quality of life,

it is all grounded in capitalism, all they are concerned about is making a dollar. i'm talking globally here, you can't go into talking about jeff vacation in harlem, or morningside heights, and not talk about why people who can't live on the upper west side anymore. they are being pushed out, and there pushing us out. -- white people. and they are pushing us out. it is about making wealthy people wealthier. it is global. living in communities, warehousing value across the country, and blue -- most black communities, is four or five times higher than it has ever been. because of the global investment.

our public officials are letting it happen. our black middle class are letting it happen. and we have to hold ourselves accountable, we are complicit in it, because we didn't keep or put pressure on them to do anything different. and until we put that pressure on them and make the policy changes, and it is global. that is the emergency that we are talking about, and that we need to address and take immediate action. >> [ applause ] >> just be clear, we will introduce ourselves as we go down the line. willie barney from omaha, nebraska. from the center of the country, and came out here, i want to

share a couple of things with you, the first thing, the name of our organization is the african-american empowerment network, a lot of people get twisted, empowerment is not giving someone power, empowerment is helping them to realize they had the power the whole time. so if you have that power, the second word we are focused on his collaboration. and to spell that out, doctor king -- doctor mac king talked about living on an island of poverty in a vast ocean of material prosperity. city by city, that is what we have been living in. in 2006 when we started, we had a 49% graduation rate for african americans, a crime rate going out of control at the highest level ever, we collaborated, we brought leaders from every sector together and we developed our own plans. that plan brought together hundreds and thousands of people to develop the

revitalization plan from the grassroot level, we developed our own plan and put it into action, we took a community- based plan, took it to the city council, and was able to get a unanimous vote to approve the plan, it is now the master plan, but it was developed by the community for the community. the other thing is, in the process of working about collaboration, addressing some of the long-term issues that have been 4 decades in the making, reducing gun violence by 80% in this area we have been focusing on, 80%. we took the graduation rate that was 49%, it is now at 81%. we are moving the dial. the unemployment rate was 25%, we have been able to bring it down to 7%, it is not where it needs to be, but we are reversing the trends. we must be in a position to

own, building strategies and redeveloping our cultural entertainment and business districts with a focus on owning the land along those core doors with our partners, a collaboration of over 500 organizations, pastors, neighborhood groups, community- based, we meet every month to strategize on how we are empowered to change our own community, that is what we are focusing on in the city of omaha. >> [ applause ] i am sister federica bay, women in support of the million man march, and the new jersey coalition for due process of law. >> hold onto your chairs. >> i am feeling james brown good. being in a mix of all of these powerful minds, you know, that have come together for one

purpose, and that is to get back our stuff. what malcolm said, he said it best. the fox is still doing what? guarding over the henhouse. now, dr. jeffries, they can say when they came, and touched the mansion, my daughter, we came back from the million man march on fire, our chairman let us down there, over 50,000 men from new jersey, the wall street journal said. they went to washington dc. from new jersey. and when we came back we were on fire. and as doctor malvo said we build a few things. we had property, and we taught children math and science, the curriculum, you understand.

and what did the folks do from the board of education? and what did chris christie do, and who owns the property today, it is owned by amazon. they own that prime property that dr. jeffries talked about right now. so we know who the foxes are, and new jersey is new jersey. the judges are the foxes, and complicit. you don't even get to the court, wells fargo, bank of america, you name it, so we know what happened in 2008, it was the stock market crash. they were bailed out. and some folks said they had to be bailed out, i don't know, i am not a politician, i know

that we were bailed on. i know who benefited from that, and it wasn't me and you. so in new jersey, foreclosure, that is what justification looks like. that is what doctor mcdaniels talked about, the [null] removal program of the 21st century is, and so the problem. the problem is predatory mortgages. the problem is fraud, slavery was a fraud. so what we are asking for, and what we deserve, black folks gave governor murphy, philip dunstan murphy, 95% of our vote. we should not have to ask for,

10 months after, a moratorium on foreclosures. and that's what we have been doing. a moratorium, on foreclosures. we think god for the assemblywoman, we have a bill, 3119, that she issued an put in, and before her, the sitting lieutenant governor, sheila oliver, she put the first billing for the moratorium, she said we know chris christie will not sign it. but the elected officials did not tell us that he wouldn't sign it either, but the reality is, she came from wall street, but i believed our elected officials, we are going to give him a chance, he needs to believe us, and write that, and issue that moratorium, it

should have been issued on the first request, because new jersey is number 1 in foreclosures in the nation for how many years in a row? 1? no, 3 years in a row. the state of new jersey, so we know what the problem is, the problem is the banks defrauding , toxic mortgages, and taking our stuff after they have been paid. the insurance has already paid these beings, we don't owe them anything, if we had a hud loan, they already pay mortgages, they bundle them, sell them all over the world, make trillions of dollars, and give themselves raises. and they take and foreclose on your house. and what makes it so insidious is that it is shameful for

black folks. we have owned our houses, we pay our taxes, our mortgages, and 2008 was created, they created this fraud. they created it. so they get the benefit of mortgages that are already paid for by insurance, by hud, they resell them for trillions of dollars, and they take our homes fraudulently. we go to the court, we present evidence-based documents that say this is the law, all we want you to do is uphold it. no due process of law. so what we have asked, what we are asking for, is very simple. asking for an executive order for moratorium on foreclosures to stop the bleeding,

assemblywoman tucker, the assembly bill, 31-19. we need you to support us on this. and lastly, taxpaying and voting citizens that play by the rules, we were defrauded as a result of the 2008 market crash when banks were bailed out, and homeowners were prayed on with toxic mortgages that continue to disproportionately devastate our community, so the solution is the moratorium on foreclosures, the executive order by governor murphy, which he received 95% of our vote, and we have been bought and paid for, like maia angelou said, we don't beg for nothing. absolutely. we need our elected officials, clergy and community, to callout the foxes that continue

to guard the hen house, foreclosure is at the very heart of the removal program of the 21st century, our hope is that the solutions to foreclosures are included, and in ibw's marshall plan, as vehicles to revitalize and help marginalized communities. i want to thank mayor ras baraka, we meet every first and 3rd thursday, the next meeting is 18 april, 2019. things to the council president, and mayor ras baraka, i want to think our chairman, larry hamm, for putting us on fire when we came back, and all of the brothers who went to the million man march, you inspired us so very much, give them a warm round of applause, we love you all.

love you much. all right? we can do this you all. we have done it before. harriet showed us out. -- showed us how. >> a round of applause. >> for radio, introduce yourself. michael mcbride, national director of live free campaign, i am from oakland, california, home of the black panthers. all power, you say to the people. all power! >> to the people! >> all right, all right. and the home of the soon to be three-time golden state warriors. god bless you all. all power! [ laughter ] know?

-- no? [ laughter ] [ laughter ] we have been a long time coming, somebody say amen. three ways that gentrification has impacted us in the bay area, the rise of the tech industry. the influx of tech companies into the bay area has created a massive displacement of working- class black people, brown people, even middle-class, poor white folk. if you are not a millionaire, literally, you cannot afford to buy a home in the city where i was born and raised, san francisco. the rent is too high. somebody say amen. you know when a preacher, hudson, we are in trouble.

amen. $3500 per month for a one bedroom, $3000 for a studio apartment. now in oakland, $2500 for a one bedroom apartment. the rise of the tech industry has created such wealth inequality that literally no one can afford to live there. if you did not have an apartment or a home before 2012, you cannot come into oakland, san francisco or the bay area without at least $120,000 income. 2 working or a single income, and afford an apartment.

you certainly can't buy a home. the rise of the tech industry . the second weight shows up, the failure of governance, by racist white progressives. everything i learned about white supremacy i learned from white progressive people. >> oh. >> the reason that things in the bay area are the way they are is not because of the tea party. progressives have governed the bay area for a decade. black elected officials, who lack imagination encourage, who do not feel like they can

center a black political agenda and win a progressive political coalition. they are the reason why gentrification is running rampant. i'm talking about the bay area, somebody say amen. black religious institutions and cultural organizations who forgot that we are the original people of the earth. >> [ applause ]>> they would rather serve a blond haired, blue-eyed jesus than a brown skinned palestinian jeux, born in nazareth, unjustly arrested by the criminal justice system of his day, and executed by the empire. that jesus.

they don't know who that jesus is. -- palestinian jewish person. the third which shows up as the mass criminalization of black people by law enforcement agencies, under the guise of public safety. who continue to grow their police budgets, even when crime is dropping. so i tell folk all the time, the progressives are not the champions of black political things were black people. now they are better than donald trump, somebody say amen. so we are not dumb up in here. he walked me off the ledge, i

was ready to blow this thing up. we have to sequence our fight, that we should not be under any illusion that white progressives are our friends. ferguson was not under the control of republicans. missouri, the state who ordered the national guard, was not a republican governor. the department of justice, who i worked with before michael brown was killed, and after, but in a different kind of way, still could not convict cops who kill unarmed black people. even our beloved president, still pulled out language like

thugs to describe young people in baltimore. so we have to have an agenda and vision that is clear about who our an agenda about who our enemies are. and i will talk about the solutions in the next go-round. >> my needs you to be a little more brief and humble. >> i'm the senior vice president of the rainbow push coalition. and i bring you greetings from jesse jackson senior. at 78 years old, publicly

acknowledging that he has been diagnosed with parkinson's, he still does far more than most of us in this room. thank god that he is still doing something for all of you and all of us up in here. let's talk about a gentrification. we keep throwing it around like it is a name, it is a system. gentrification. i defined it as pretty prior terry control of black people established by law and sustained by force. the reason it is established by law, the law is not about morals. it is about rules. we bring our value system to the table, and we plead with the plantation

owner to do the right thing, but do the right thing is a spike lee joined. it's not a political philosophy. brother malcolm's reminder. we've been bamboozled. in order to be ourselves, as black people we have to put on black face to become acceptable and then when white people put on black face we are too stupid to be outraged. that they can make it acceptable. that the mockery of the black people is a somehow acceptable. and here is what i will say gentrification looks like in

the baltimore city. it's the birthplace of thurgood marshall. cab calloway. one of the finest art districts outside of harlem, new york. running right down pennsylvania avenue. our problem is that it looks like a bad attempt to play monopoly with the rules of checkers. are there any monopoly players in the room. i will see how much you know about monopoly. everybody knows the last two pieces of property that you can own before you pasco. boardwalk and park place.

how many of you know the first two places after you pasco? baltic and mediterranean avenues. wall and we are picking pieces trying to figure out who's going be the symbol, the dog, the cat the most important player in monopoly is the bank the bank or controls the money. and if you've ever played monopoly where goes too long. once you run out of money, the banker can print more money. and they can keep the game going. now the process flows like this. some of us want to live long enough to escape trespassing so that we can get our check. we ignore baltic and

mediterranean until we get up in a jam. and we mainly i get out of jail free car or help with the light bill. and the hustle goes something like this just yesterday in baltimore city, the city solicitor filed a class-action lawsuit against the banks on behalf of the citizens of baltimore, negotiating a bond rate they found out that they had scaled the cost of the bond to majority black jurisdictions . gentrification is not a thing that just happens. it is a proprietary right. property law united states was johnson

versus macintosh. a transaction where the indigenous people transferred a piece of property minus a d. deed. when the court made a determination, they argued that the deed because it was established by rules not morals. then the second owner could claim it because the right of conquest tied to the birthright from england, allowed that the arbitrary establish you're not

on the property with permission and your trespassing. and now has led to a system where gentrification is keeping you in the side of town where you are supposed to stay. because if you get caught on park place or boardwalk without permission, you are going to jail. >> who was down there on the end? is that somebody that we know? that he look familiar? power to the people.

>> when we began a discussion about gentrification. it is important that we examine the entomology of the word. what is the root word of gentrification. gentry. who was the gentry? the gentry was the english word for the emerging bourgeoisie in england. the middle class, it was used interchangeably for land owners. we see in the word gentrification, the class nature. another way of describing it gentrification is class warfare. the warfare of the rich against the poor.

another way of describing gentrification is ethnic cleansing. it is the removal of primarily black and brown people from their communities, and they are replaced by other people. mostly white people. what does it gentrification look like? it's like when you go to college for four years and you come back home and you do not recognize your community. gentrification is when multi- million-dollar sports stadiums are built in the downtown area, subsidized by people's taxa dollars. it's when a sparkling performing arts center is constructed on the cemeteries of our slave ancestors. as they are here in newark, new jersey.

cemeteries that are so old that nobody even remembers that they are there. when the name of the city is taken off facilities, and a corporate name is in its place but when i went to philadelphia even the subway had wells fargo's name on it. gentrification is when you live in the hood, and all of a sudden blocks of the hood are replaced by condominiums, town houses, the people that live in the neighborhood can't even afford to live in. gentrification is when those townhouses and communities have walls put around them so the people who used to live there cannot walk through the committee. gentrification is when the

schools you went to were public schools, now they are closed and replaced with charter schools. gentrification is when you went to the shop right and it's closed and in its place is whole foods. that's a gentrification. when you are paying more than two thirds of your take-home pay to rent. rent should not be more than 25% of our income it is so fitting that we have a form here in new work new jersey on gentrification. it is a stork home of the largest rent strike in the

history of the united states. in 1971 a brother named toby henry organize the people to withhold their money until the elevators worked again. and the lights were put back on. the urine was cleaned up in the stairwell and apartments were painted and lead paint was removed. that rent strike lasted for one year. and if you want to know the most powerful weapon to fight gentrification. it is tenant organizing and people organizing to fight gentrification. how do we fight gentrification? you have to start with the right perspective.

what is the right perspective. housing is not a commodity to be bought and sold in the marketplace. housing is a human right for all people. all people have a right for decent and affordable housing. how do we fight? i agree that we need a revolutionary transformation. yesterday was the anniversary of the assassination of martin luther king jr. if you read his book where do we go from here, he says that we need a radical redistribution of power and wealth in the united states and he goes on to say that we need a radical transformation

of the socioeconomic system. we need a revolution but it's going to take us a while to get to that revolution. we must fight for short-term or reform. a lot of you middle-class people do not care about the section 8. a whole lot of our people get a section eight subsidy. and right now president donald trump through his puppet ben carson is trying to significantly/the section 8 program. we must fight against any budget cuts and public housing and against the section 8 program. we cannot deal adequately with this problem unless we get rid of the right wing dictatorship that currently occupies the

white house and congress of the united states. those are interim things that we have to fight for. we have to fight for housing and tenant rights in every town. in washington state, they just passed a law, for state wide rent control. we need to fight for that in every state. i know some people don't like to hear this because that means we have to intervene in the economic system. we have to intervene but i am down with malcolm x. he said find me a capitalist and i will find you a bloodsucker. said that it cannot exist without racism.

and they are the two main forces that are driving gentrification. as they said, gentrification didn't just start. it started after the uprising of the 1960s. that's when it started. it was when they ran the interstate highway through the black community. when they ran 7-day through the southward. when they ran 280 through the southward. when they tore down half of the central ward to build the university hospital. that's what it goes back to pick how do we fight gentrification. we need to elect revolutionary

elected officials we need to build revolutionary organizations to hold those officials accountable. ken gibson came out of the process. two weeks after the uprising in 1967 there was a black power conference in new jersey. one year after that there was a black power convention at a high school. one year after that, there was a black and puerto rican convention of 1970. and out of that came ken gibson. he was the mayor and got elected that was black power. we need to go back to this process like we did in gary in 1972. we need a black political agenda that includes a fight against gentrification.

and economic bill of rights for a living wage. for an end to the student debt and free tuition. power to the people. >> all right, so. everybody okay? meeting on spygatee everybody okay. we are continuing with the national gentrification summit. and we are going to talk to

several people about solutions that they are implementing. first of all, let's talk about solutions. >> let me bring this to a spirit of process and public policy. i would like to talk about the process of policy. given the level of corporate capital that is driving gentrification, they are reconfiguring and redeveloping urban space. that is where they can maximize, absorb capital and maximize a. it is agreed. i believe that many of

the solutions have to be outside of the realm. we need to think of solutions outside of the realm of capitalism. we need to think about ownership and wealth from less than an individual perspective to a collective perspective. in this part of the country we have cooperatives. in many parts of the country, we do not. they do not know what co-ops are. they have not implemented them. they are not familiar with community land trust. these are institutions that move us

closer to the availability of affordable housing and hopefully housing as a right. they also build democracy. in the process is collectively owned and controlled that is a one- way. and what that requires when we think about our culture. i'm going to bring the church into this for moment. we need to think about what stewardship really means. we have a responsibility not just to ourselves but to the generations coming after us. to make a better and finally because this is an emergency. i believe we need to go back and collectively demand from our local governments that we

demand that any time a development is happening in our community and city that there must be a racial impact assessment. already we have an environmental assessment that is required for anything tied to federal money. in most local places before they do development, they have an assessment. we need to do the same thing and ensure that the same thing happens in our community. to ensure that any development that happens, makes it better for those of us living in the me. >> thank you jeffrey lowe , texas southern university. >> there's a couple of things,

regarding economy. when the new orleans economy is dependent on tourism. the revenue that is generated so that we can support and invest in our neighborhood and people. if we are renewing a existing tax that is disproportionately benefiting one institution. we need to distribute that same tax in a new way that provides the resources to take care of our parks in all parts of the city, even for people who don't want to live downtown, they still have the quality of parks and facilities a given that same quality of life. and wind developers, if they do not want to have affordable housing in their communities. we need our fair share of other resources so that we can build

that affordable housing, that is some of the things that the mayor is working on. we need our fair share of local hiring, if you want to come in and do business you have to hire local people,. your goods and services. and that is what we are working on to find a solution. >> one of the things that we need to say is that we are empowered. the reason i wanted to hit that, based on what i understand, the mayor is opening doors other cities that do not have it.

you have an administration that is opening the door, but now we have to walk through it collectively. we have land in the community right now that could be purchased if you work on it collectively. and that is what we're focusing on an omaha. specific strategic a lot where we have worked with partners to make sure that 70% is in good hands to work with to make sure there is collective ownership. all of the different sectors. this is a powerful room. if just the people in this room were able to agree on come together with an agenda for the community. there is no stopping what you can get done with the mayor you have in place right now. you have to be collaborative,

collective, and comprehensive. develop your plan and make it happen. >> solutions. as i said earlier i want to focus on not electing people who just look like us but people who think like us, and people who love us. we want to focus, this word is being said so much. collective work. and responsibility. as leaders we should not design and defend,

we should design in concert with our brothers and sisters. i also want to talk about another principle that we are trying to implement and make sure that happens in jackson, mississippi. as part of the new african creed. we talk about believing in community as a family believing in the family and in the community and then believing in the community as family. we used to live like that. used to lend a hand to our neighbors when they were in need. we used to collectively work to build that barn. we used to come to our neighbors aid when there was a fire. and now we go behind our locked door and we act like we do not know each other. that has to change we have to build collectively.

>> solutions. i want to suggest that we do this like we did in east new york. we started an organization called operation power. people organizing and working for empowerment and respect. the people that make history and revolution. we challenge the entire democratic party club they control every black community in east new york city. what we did, not only did we win the city council seat. we also won the assembly seat, the female leadership, the male leadership. we control the community board, the judicial delegates. we control the local judge in that area it all came out of operation power. and because we did that the

first solution was the infrastructure. i kid you not pick you have to come to east new york. do we have foreclosures and crime. yes. we have three new $100 million schools built in east new york. we have a $50 million state-of- the-art two-story youth center. we have a group called man up running the youth center. putting pressure on the mayor to give us $400,000 annually to run a. we have a new $36 million library that is coming into east new york. they are building it in the area where there was some enslaved africans buried. we told them to stories on top

of the library. we wanna cultural museum to honor the african-american people. and we are going to get it. we were able to get a shopping mall. they tried to bring a walmart. they said you're not going stop walmart. we stopped at walmart. we said get out of here. and we got a brother from east new york who had space and a restaurant called the fusion east. he was able to get that space because we had a movement that demanded that. we made sure that in all of our schools we have a libraries fixed up, computer labs, science labs. recording studios. in east new

york, where can you go and get a new apartment. a one bedroom apartment making 16,000 to $25,000 a year for $550 a month in rent. in east new york. that is a solution. solutions. moving quickly. >> very quickly a couple of think we need to look at and i don't see the mayor, but to the solutions moving quickly. very quickly. a couple of things that we need to look at. i don't see the mayor. as opportunity zones are expanded. make sure that there's the application of the section 3 of the hud act.

that allows for recipients of public assistance of vouchers, or those that live in an area where there is public housing. and the income fits that you can use the voucher to help with establishing equity. mena say that again. remember section 3, not just section a. we wanted to be fully applied, and once the loan guarantee is payback. track it when it goes to the general fund to make sure that those funds are not redeployed. that you develop uptown and downtown to make sure that baltic and mediterranean avenue have what they need just like park place and boardwalk.

rev. michael mcbride solutions? >> we need to organize a public safety agenda beyond policing and prison. we need to become front line suppliers. public health intervention specialist who can intervene in the conflicts of young people. using public health intervention so that we do not have to depend on the police to create peace in our community. the churches are strategically located on every block, they can serve as an outpost of peacemaking. we can open our doors and become intervention specialist.

organizing our congregation. erica ford, one of the specials. we have people who will come and train you, that is one solution. it will decrease police budgets. and we can reinvest those savings into housing, schools, and into parks. >> we behave as if the tax system just is. and we have to accept the tax law. it was a transfer of income from the port to the wealthy. we saw that this year when people didn't get the tax refunds that they thought they were going to get. we are talking about organizing we have to organize around changing the tax code, it sits

on the wealthy almost exclusively. half of us don't have any stock. so that's going put aside some community development. also talking about government programs. people say how are you going to pay for it? change the tax code. visit growing wealth gap is not just a black issue. we are seeing working-class whites looking at a wealth gap. the last recession we have the top 10% of 150% better off. the bottom was 15%. i would implore people as they do the policy work to focus on taxation. >> those were the panelists it

ron daniels asked me to share solutions. please give all of the panelists a round of applause. do not go anywhere. we were scheduled to have the mayor come forward at 9:30 pm. it is 9:31 pm. we are right on time. as our brother comes forward, and talks about leadership. again, he never thought he would be a mayor. we were young, we were kids. a lot of times, those that were black nationals were revolutionary. when some of us want to go into public service, our sisters and brothers accuse us of selling

out. it's a complicated thing. takes courage to stand up and run for office. because you are going to get those hits. but when you do it in the way that sisters sophia described. and you serve your people. you get up under your people and lift them up. we are pleased for the mayor of new jersey. >> i want to thank ron daniels . he's been putting in the work for many years, and many people know that we've been having

this here in the city of newark, new jersey. bringing people from all over the country to debate and talk about issues. we have the courage to debate and discuss picked that is important. i heard somebody appear talking about friends and enemies. it is important and i said this this morning. it's important to understand that sometimes we may agree, but there will always be our enemies. sometimes we are going to disagree with our friends, but we cannot treat our friends like her enemies. it's something my father talked about which was unity and struggle. people will always be planted in places did destroy and disrupt the work that people are trying

to do. and i am very clear on that 100,000%. at the end of the day unity and struggle means we have to have the right to struggle with people and unite on a higher level. you can't hang out with racist because you are mad at one of your friends. you cannot say i disagree with you on a policy and then go stand with the racist and be against me because we disagree on policy. you're either confused or you work for another entity that has not been revealed. it needs to be clear i want to begin talking about that. they said always bear in mind that people are not fighting for ideas. they are fighting to win material benefits. to see their lives go forward. into guarantee the future further children.

we have to have allies, if we fight the fight with our allies we cannot win. and that came from something called tell no lies. we cannot lie and asked like we are winning. there may be some successes, but collectively we are losing around the country we are losing. i do not care who you say you are for. we have been losing. what is the collective strategy to get us out of the condition that we are in? do we have the courage to struggle? and unite around the larger issue. there are 10 things that we could put on a piece of paper. and if we disagree with a few we quit. and we are at odds and attacking each other because we cannot get together.

and it prevents us from organizing. we have to be as sophisticated as the united states congress. with over they say it's the law, if you break the law, come and see if they represent you. you have to be sophisticated enough to understand that it's our job to make those things more effective. not pull it apart. this is a great panel. an awesome panel. want to push back on a few things, i do not believe that conditions organize people. it's important to know that everybody organizes, and the organize every single day.

they organizing good and bad times. and when things are doing great you have to organize when things are great so that you can be prepared when things are bad. i live in newark, beating people up doesn't give them strength it just gets them beat up. it's important that we organize people and organizing takes work. you can go to someone else's event and organize the people coming out of that event because they will not go to yours. you can go and disrupt their event because you can't trade in the event of your own. and you have to ask why can you get people to come and listen to you since you got the right line. why aren't they following you? it takes work to get to that place. i'm not trying to organize people to get angry.

anger doesn't make people organize. when you are clear you are organize. when you're angry you do all kinds of things. and some of the things you do may be in spite of yourself. it's important to be clear of what we are talking about. you can't call yourself an activist, you can call yourself a revolutionary, you don't even know, you haven't read one book about revolution, but you are running around calling yourself these things. if you want to be a mathematician you have to study math. if you want to be a revolutionary you have to study revolution. if not you make the same mistake over and over again. and that it allows your enemies to go free.

once you destroy once another, make enemies come up the middle and win. that is been happening for centuries, you do not have to agree with everyone in here, your agreement should be a prerequisite. anybody who tells you that you have to agree with everything i say is a narcissist. and if they are narcissist you should not want to unite with them anyway. at the end of the day, all we have to agree to are the overarching principles. and we can struggle to get to that end goal. i don't agree with everyone in my family, and i love them. if my mother tells me to get something done i will.

but at the end of the day it's a struggle. that a struggle is important. we have to have that struggle but it is based on principle. cannot be based on me trying to get what you have. or personal difference that i have. it can't be based on the fact that i don't like you as an individual. are struggle has to be a principal struggle. we talk about self determination. people want a self- determination. they just do not want to do the work. and they don't want to have the responsibility. it's easy to put the responsibility on to people and criticize them because they didn't do what you needed them to do. but you're not involved in any of it. you sit on the side and criticize but you failed to be responsible for the work. you have to get involved. tell no lies, claim no easy victories.

you cannot have 10 soldiers doing the work of eight. and the two soldiers on the site complaining about the eight. they need to get involved. that's what needs to happen. we are talking about decades of gentrification that took place years before most of you were even born. , well some of you. we are talking about stuff that was post world war two mac. when they began to d invest in the commute. subsidizing people to go to the suburbs, creating these roads so that people could get wealth in the communities. they purposely just invested. and then they created these things where they said they were going to invest in the community. leaving the land barren for years.

you have a bunch of bacon lots, they've been there since 1950. since 1967. they took whole slots of land down and no longer vest in that community. there is no longer wealth in your commute. the whole idea that gentrification as the color is not true. gentrification is part of a market force that exists. that means that is the low income housing in manhattan is $3000 and i've been charging $700. those people will find their way to this aside. i now cannot charge them 700 i can charge them $1800 because i can get the rent that's market forces that control that. that is a primary function of capitalism.

our job is to mitigate that. how do you get in the way of that to make sure that that does not crush people. that you're not throwing people out. when people say they came back to the community and look different it should look different. let me tell you why. i grew up in newark, new jersey. for real. when i came up, there was not even a sitdown restaurant in our neighborhood. no atm. vacant lots, abandoned buildings. housing it's been outdated for 30-40 years. the question is? how do they change? and where'd you get that wealth from to change? people are trending back to the cities, they say it's hip and it's next to the train station. people moving downtown.

we have to figure out what to do in our neighborhoods where we live. i do not live downtown. most of us do not live downtown. while were arguing about buildings that are downtown. you're never looks like a mess. what we need to be doing is figuring out how to extract wealth. getting developers to develop and owned that property. here are a few things. i had the pleasure of sitting in a meeting a week ago with three young african-american men. they formed a corporation at the meeting. they did it at the meeting. that is empowerment. and i sat in that meeting and they sat with other developers and identified a parcel that they're going to develop

themselves. because the city has something that says you have to have a minority developer, that you get equity in the property, they sat at the table as the principal on the property because the other folks could not get the deal done unless they were in the room. that is the condition that you create while you are yelling and screaming, they are building in their community. building property in the neighborhoods where they were born and race. you want to fight gentrification, own some property. i'm glad i was able to sit in that room. we are about to cut a ribbon next month for paper co-op in the city of newark. we identified an african american brother in the south. we brought him up here i know you know freedom paper. we paid him a consultant fee to

develop a paper company. and we are invested in building the warehouse. and we are training folks in the city to run and owned that co-op. the municipal council just passed legislation that allows us to purchase businesses from small companies and give that business to the workers there. and from the prophet they pay that loan off to the city in order that they owned that property in perpetuity. these are the things that collective ownership is the beginning of how you stop gentrification. when people talk about inclusion, it is a tool, it is not an end-all and be-all. it is a tool designed especially if you have

affordable housing. our people are not coming downtown. they do not want to be down here. their families are too big. ever real families. not millennial's who live by themselves. they want to live in their neighborhood, they want their neighborhood fixed up. what they are doing is forcing them to put it into a community where people live through affordable housing trust funds. they may have a gap in financing to take that money and put it into financing. they have a full project, and they may need to charge this amount of rent. when the state of new jersey will pass the landing. they will get the land back that they're waiting in the

wings for. controls the property and allows us to use it for things we think it should be used for. not giving it to spectators who by property and flip it and sell at exorbitant prices. then you partner with the land trust. allowing us to identify parts of the city and say that this will be affordable in perpetuity. will say it will always be affordable no matter what at this price. we get to do those things. but you have to be able to make those things take place. i hear people saying you need rent control. we've had it for a long time. when i was a legislator we strengthened rent control. we have the strongest rent control in the nation.

navigators try to not be involved in it by not registering properties pick that just means we have to be aggressive. i don't argue with people who say rent control has to be bad. help me register them. get your organization to come with me. were going to get together, were to walk down the block and identified the buildings. were going to call the cities and make them get on the registry. that is what we are going to do. that is registered action. get off your laurels knock on some doors and say these buildings are not register. that is what you should be doing. that is fundamentally what should be happening.

the fundamental job after all of those pieces that i talked about. it is necessary for us to make sure the people in our community have wealth. they have to have wealth. if they don't have wealth, then there is no self-determination you can determine your destiny without resources. if you don't have any wealth, how are your kids going to eat? have to go to the breadline and get food from somebody else. you're always going be dependent on other people to do for you what you should be doing for yourself. it's important to build wealth and our commute that is why it is important. a brother said something very deep about diverting funding from police agencies to other organizations $36 million in new york city funds that were

diverted to do street organizing in their community. when she was organizing and protesting she turned it into something real to give them an opportunity in their community. we just had a meeting in newark a few weeks ago with the organizations in this town that are doing police work, we even had a rutgers hospital there. because there was a doctor who treated a patient that had been shot in the back. after treating that patient they referred them to the newark street academy. we need to make that systemic. we are having a meeting next week with the police agency to say that we need 1% to 5% of your funding to be diverted to

a fund to fund the organizations for alternative police work. all these things that exist is difficult. especially in communities that have no resources. that they depend on people to come there, and if they would do that they wouldn't do what they say they would do. with defined opportunities to create so that we can do things

ourselves. we are busy fighting each other, we don't want the street sweeping contract to go to anyone else. we want to clean the building ourselves. we don't want to spend a whole bunch of money for you to pick up our garbage. we want to pick up our garbage ourselves. we don't want to spend millions of dollars to pick up our snow. we could hire our own people to get it done. we will fight to get it done. and we will have to yell and scream because self hatred is alive and well. fighting with each other to get it right. we never relinquish our right to self-determination because we are angry or we feel that were not going do it right. most people aren't cleaning up the streets in the first place. you weren't paying attention

five years ago, the street wasn't cleaned 10 years ago. now that we are saying we want to hire our own street sweeper's. now we are focused, we have to have more discipline than that, i don't care if you're angry or mad. your anger is nothing new. you can be angry and mad all you want. what you need to do is be organized. organize, you can go and yell and scream at a wall. you have to be part of an organization. and you by yourself is not an organization. you going to meetings and yelling is not an organization. 'e

powerbroker. i laughed at that. it took me 20 years to build an organization. i'm not angry that i have an organization. i'm happy i got an organization. i remember i had $10,000 and was frying chicken in my mother's house to raise money to run for office when i was 24 years old involved in these communities and streets, raising my own money with no organization, going against all of the people. i'm glad i got an organization, i'm glad i raised money. i really my own money against all the money. i'm glad we raised money. i listened to them. more portly, i know who he is. >> you can't be an organizer if

you don't read. you can't be walking around talking to people if you didn't read a thing. you have to read all the time. you cannot be an organizer if you do not remapping. the cannot be walking around talking to people you don't read nothing. you have to read all of the time. i learned how to study. my mother told me that. i do not have to agree with you. i do not care if you're the mayor. i do not have to agree with you. she will say that to the present day. you have to convince me. yelling is not going to

convince me. if you love somebody you want to struggle with the. if you put your hands on them, i will hurt you. we disagree with one all the time. she called me the other day. he has a right to do that. she text me this morning to complain about a few things that need to take place. did not be outside fighting the very people who are here to help you get to the place you want to get too. lasting a promise.

i was at my brother's keeper treatment. there were some guys outside. they were talking about president obama. he was not even there. the point is, there is a whole bunch of people from all over the country. giving us the history. the return about criminal justice reform. i said, how is this helping to organize those boys in that. you disagree with them. you have more in common with them. you are so focused on barack obama that you're forgetting there are people in there that need to be organized. if you focused on organizing, you do not have time to be talking about him. you will be organizing the

people because you know the struggle is bigger. your opportunist. you think it will get you some attention. deacon pulled him toward you. discussing going back and forth. letting them understand what the largest struggle looks like. our enemies are our enemies. our enemies our enemies. you never unite against our allies. never unite with our enemies. you can never leave allies out there by himself. i am not saying not struggle with them. fight with them like cats and dogs. you love them to life. you said this is the law.

when people ask you what happened. i didn't know what happened in there. we have tough operational unity. anybody that is opposed to unity is not involved in a counterintelligence program. objectively meaning actions serve the interest. the subject with her getting paid to come in there and disrupt some staff. when the lights went out people put their hands on their hips. i do not never romanticize struggle. i grew up in a household. i saw my father beat by police for my whole family.

testified at 10 years old at a trial when they arrested my dad for resisting arrest on a charge he did not even do. he was convicted of inciting a riot by reading his poem in corey coleman. i do not romanticize. i grew up my office know what it the seven dollars. that is as of effect. if you cannot organize with each other and your ego at the door. the people back their money. some of y'all are taking some money. you are talking about elected officials. some of you out there taking some money. give it back.

organize with all of us together. this is the third year he has done this. i take responsibility for that. we wanted to get it out as much as we possibly can. is beautiful folks in here. we want to continue to move these things for. gentrification and all the things we're talking about can be defeated by one person. there is not one of us appear smart enough to do a parcel. if we tell you we are smart enough to do it along the way are lying to you. we are claiming easy victories. we cannot do bars are. we have to do this collectively. i would rather you come to my house and ring my bell. i you struggled me the not come

to this meeting as you are mad at a few things. bring yourself to city hall. bring you and your boy and your sister. we can have a road to break in the conference room if you're serious about things you want to see happen in the city. god bless you. >> we will talk with the attorney about the constitutionality of including a citizenship question on the 2020 census. also the reporter will be on to talk about active duty and

retired law enforcement officers. joining online hate. be sure to watch of the seven eastern tuesday morning. joined the discussion. >> for 40 years c-span has been providing american unfiltered coverage of congress.