today, security concerns into the 2024 presidential election cycle which testimony from election assistants and commissioners. live, at 3:30 pm eastern, before the senate rules on the administration committee.

on c-span 3, c-span now, our free mobile video app. and online, and. >> we welcome back to our program, the national urban league presidents discussion on the state of black america. that's the annual report that the national urban league has released each year since the 1970s. the name of this year's report is democracy in peril. fronting the threat to us in. why that name? >> first of all, let me thank you for having me and good morning to all the c-span viewers and listeners. the name, when we look at the last several years, we've witnessed a distinct effort to undermine american democracy. it just yesterday, for people were convicted in a federal court of attending to overthrow the united states government. by blocking the transfer of power after the 2020 election.

and now, there have been any number of people who've been indicted, who have tried to have their day in court. and they've been convicted. we decided to dig deep into this very significant question, and what we found is literally hundreds of bills, introducing state legislatures all across the country. they had no purpose whatsoever except to make it more difficult for people to vote. with a target on the backs of the voting power of black people, and in some cases, latinos. in some cases, young voters. in some cases, disabled voters. and then number two, we dug into the hate crime numbers. what we saw is an alarming spike in hate crimes in america. directed not only a black people, but it jews and muslims and asian americans, and latinos, and lgbtq americans.

a stifling increase. and to answer that, we see hate crimes that also included violent acts of assault. of killings, when you take all of this together, what we conclude is that the hate and extremism which has always been present in the united states is now creeping into america with some elected officials, with people who occupy positions of respect trumpeting and channeling the rhetoric and the actions of the movement for hate. it's a movement for hate, intelligence, extremism, and white supremacy. the goal of it seems to be to undermine democracy. i would encourage people to

look at the numbers, take a look at the report, we have a number of people who have contributed to the report, the governor, maryland west more. community leaders around the country who have contributed to the report as well as research partners. and those who can track numbers when it comes to hate crime. the target of much of this is black america, i want everyone to understand the target is to undermine's incredible institution called american democracy. it gives us all an equal right to fit at the table, he left office, and debate the issues that impact us. >> you started with the january 6th trial, the convictions yesterday, of those former proud boy members. leading with that, a report

about the state of black america. do you think the target of january six was black america? >> no. i add that, that's not in the report. but that is a contemporary example of the effort to undermine democracy. in some cases the target by some is to diminish the influence of black voters. in some cases, if you look at the 2020 election, and you saw a tax on philadelphia, on detroit, on atlanta. one need not be a great scientist or analyst to understand that that is suggestive of cities, atlanta, philadelphia, and detroit the majority african american. and suggest that there is unsubstantiated suggestions, that there was fraud. there was a racial dimension lurking within the entire

january 6th attack. and when i say lurking within, while it may be a motivation and a significant motivation, it was not the only motivation to try to overturn the election. sometimes it's like coffee and sugar and milk. it's all mixed up, and to distill it requires us to be understanding of history. it's important that we not suggest with this attack on democracy that it's only about black americans. i think it's far beyond that. but a central tenet of it is to suppress the ability of black americans to participate in american democracy. over the last ten years, they have found intentional discrimination by state

legislatures. and we have to understand in american democracy in the 21st century, it is multi racial. american democracy in 21st century is a multi religious institution. it's a multi gender orientation institution. the foundation of this country is that all people are created equal. >> mark morial us, our topic is the state of black america. that is the annual report that came out recently from the national urban league. it's been coming out every year since the mid 1970s. if you want to join the conversation, republicans can call at 74,801. we will have this conversation until the end of our program. one component of democracy is the freedom to get a job in this country. the new jobs report came out an hour ago, the unemployment rate,

3.4%. that's down in this country. these unemployment numbers are significant, because we are trending for the lowest unemployment rates in american history. does that mean that the economy is perfect? does it mean that the economy has no problems? what it means is directionally, we have come back from the covid recession in an impressive way. now, you have record numbers of americans working, you have lower unemployment of blacks, whites, and latinos then you historically had. for over a year, they've been suggesting there is going to be a recession. some of the experts who have been suggesting an overview of what consumers don't feel that

way, they continue to invest in spending. the other thing we have is jobs facing people. there are more vacancies and people looking. there is usually a discussion isolates issues versus unemployment, versus economic grope. we look at it compared to where we were a year ago, and where we are now. are we directionally better off? are we better off and we were three years ago? absolutely right. we had millions of people unemployed due to the covid pandemic. i say to those who challenge that response, we have not had the response by the government. we may still have double digit

unemployment. the response was not bold enough for assertive enough for landing employment and slower growth. this response has been a far better, and while we do have inflation, i do think that the actions by the said thus far have been irresponsible. i do not like the notion of using unemployment to fight inflation as a weapon. i hope that the fed will now ease off of these interest rate rises, so we can get to a stable interest rate environment for the next several months, the next several years. >> a let you chat with your collars, with us for the next half hour this morning. rich jay from maryland, you are up first. good morning. >> good morning. i have a question.

y'all had marianne williams on yesterday, are there any plans to have rob kennedy junior on, since he is running as well? >> yeah, i think we can take any candidates running from president and give you a chance to ask questions. it's something no there outlets let people do. so if the opportunity came, up i would imagine answer would be yes. >> his supporters have voiced concerned have him on the show. my question for mr. murray's, they have a lot of influence in the black community. i myself, i do not know the measure of. it's my first question, you already answered. thank you for that, thanks for coming. on my second question has to do with, there is an investigative journalist named lee ferrell, he released an article that fires at quality finance

groups. and he names the urban league as one of those that received huge amounts of money to persuade members of the black community to take the vaccine. and y'all didn't disclose this on your website. >> i will say this. as a matter of course, we don't disclose donors on our website. if donors want to disclose their contributions to us, they have a right to do so. but as a matter of policy, we don't do that. let me clarify this. i'm not certain the relationship that we have -- we have 95 affiliates with pfizer, but we did have a campaign. it wasn't designed to persuade black people to take the vaccine. it was designed to give people information so they could intelligently make a choice to take the vaccine. and also, to provide access to the vaccine on an equal basis. that's what's important, and we

handed that effort to some of the finest african american physicians in the country. who examined or messages, and examined the scientific verify ability of this. so this investigative journalist is trying to put a wedge into this conversation. the fact of the matter is that 20 people died during the pandemic. the fact of the matter is that the vaccine was a tool. no one was forced to take it, unless a in ploy or require due to. i took the vaccine, but i would never encourage anyone to take until after the best doctors the, best scientists and people recommended that they take. it so we had many contributors who supported our work. we are proud of that work, but it's not our practice to list donors on our website.

>> st. paul minnesota. this is lawrence, independent. good morning. >> hello. one of my concerns is that in minneapolis, in excess of 88% of black folks are being born into single family homes. this is definitely path towards poverty, crime, low unemployment, government dependency, and things like that. there are issues out there but i do not understand why the urban league does not have this reference in their reports. it's something to be handled without other places, or asking for money. we need to get our arms around that, so i'm going to hang up here. >> i think what's important is that the number of children

born to single moms, it's not only a phenomenon in the black community, it's a phenomenon in the white community. and those numbers have increased significantly over a number of years. i strongly believe that we have to support children, whether they are born in a single parent or two parent home. or born into a situation where they've got a broad number of family members to support them. i think it's very, very important to support and put the focus on children, and not to vilify moms or people. because they choose to have a child and they choose that they may not want to be married. the issue is, do we have the support from the father and support from the mother to raise the child? whether they are married or not, or whether you have children born in a non traditional family sitting, i had many

family members who were raised by a grandmother and a father. because the mother was not present. so we have to support and emphasize children. we support -- we need to focus on that as an important thing, and we support on supporting children. children should not be penalized, because of the deficiencies of their parents. i think that even if a person grows up in a single parent home, the question is, are they loved? is their support? is there carrying? is there -- if you will, the kind of support and love that they need? we addressed, for a short period of time, with the child tax credit, and made a big dent in child poverty. that tax credit was temporary.

i'd like to see the government go back and make it permanent. it's about children, and supporting them, giving them what they need. >> what is the national urban league's quality index? >> the quality index which we publish every other year, is a comparison of the social and economic conditions of black americans versus white americans, versus latinos. and it's designed to help people understand the real disparity. so we looked at these numbers, with 300 sets of numbers. and african americans track at about 73% of the status of white americans, latinos, they tracked about 77, 78%. the status of white americans, and the reason why we publish the data is because all too often, the discussions about

race, and to be non fact based. and to be based on emotionalism sometimes. and sometimes based on misperception, sometimes outright misinformation. you've got to understand that these disparities are real, and to the extent that we close them, not only will black americans be better off, where latinas we better off, but the entire nation will be better off because we will have far more people participating at full capacity. are we closing them? is the state of black america getting better? >> we have noticed over the last 15 years, marginal, maybe 2% improvement. there